Euro 2021: Moscow closes its fan-zone because of a resurgence of Covid-19
Gazprom Arena, the stadium in Saint-Petersburg which hosts Euro 2020 matches. REUTERS - ANTON VAGANOV
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
The city of Moscow announced Friday to close its Euro football fan-zone and to ban all entertainment events bringing together more than 1,000 people due to the recent surge in Covid-19 cases.
"We are stopping mass entertainment events for a while, and we must also close the dance halls and the fan-zone for a while" at the Luzhniki Olympic complex, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on his website.
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Russia, its capital in mind, is facing a new epidemic wave against the backdrop of a vaccination campaign that is slipping, the absence of restrictions for months, the emergence of one or more more virulent variants and non-compliance with rules for distancing and wearing a mask.
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We are stopping mass entertainment events for a while, and we must also close the dance halls and the fan zone for a while
" at the Luzhniki Olympic complex, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on his website.
"Covid-free" restaurants
Russia hosts a total of seven Euro football matches, all in Saint Petersburg, the country's second city, where the epidemic has also spread.
The mayor of Moscow has also extended until June 29 the closure, decreed last weekend, of eating places in shopping malls, zoos as well as all public park facilities, such as playgrounds and sports equipment.
Restaurants and bars will have to close from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., as was already the case for a week.
However, he decided to end the nonworking period decreed from June 15 to 20 to curb the epidemic.
Finally, he announced that the city would experiment in the coming weeks with the establishment of “Covid-free” restaurants, which will allow establishments with 100% of staff vaccinated to welcome, without restrictions or distancing, people who are immunized or have 'a negative PCR test.
The European country most bereaved by Covid ...
For nearly a year, the state apparatus and the public media have been highlighting the good management of the health crisis and the prowess of Sputnik V, a vaccine developed by Russia and available for more than six months.
But the Russians did not go to be vaccinated despite repeated appeals from the government, Vladimir Putin the first, against a background of mistrust of a population scalded by decades of Soviet and then Russian propaganda and budget cuts in the health sector.
Since December, only 19 million Russians out of 146 million inhabitants have received at least one dose, according to the census of the Gogov site, which aggregates data from regions and media for lack of official national statistics.
Russia became on Thursday, with 127,992 deaths recorded by the government, the most bereaved European country since the start of the pandemic, ahead of the United Kingdom (127,926 deaths).
The Russian statistics agency, Rosstat, which has a broader definition of Covid-related deaths, has recorded at least 270,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
(
with AFP
)
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Read also: Covid-19: Moscow commits to compulsory vaccination
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