After India and the United Kingdom, Russia is in turn facing an outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic.

For several days, Moscow has been facing a record increase in contamination due to the Delta variant, the mayor of the Russian capital said on Friday, June 18, announcing certain restrictions but still refraining from ordering strict containment measures.

"89.3% of patients are infected with a coronavirus which has mutated, says Delta, the Indian variant. And it is more aggressive, spreads faster," said Sergei Sobyanin, on the air of the television channel Pervi Kanal. .

"This is the reason why we are seeing an explosion in morbidity and a strong growth in hospitalizations," he added.

The capital of 12 to 13 million inhabitants recorded 9,056 new cases in 24 hours, a record since the start of the epidemic and triple the level recorded less than two weeks ago.

1,764 patients had to be hospitalized on Thursday.

With 17,262 daily contaminations nationwide, Russia is at its highest since February 1.

The country has also recorded 453 additional deaths, a peak since March 18, and Moscow deplores 78 new deaths.

In response, Moscow has already increased the number of beds for patients with Covid-19 from 13,000 to 17,000 since Monday, and intends to increase its capacity to 20,000 in the coming days.

Limited restrictions

Russia is, with 128,445 deaths recorded by the government, the most bereaved European country.

The Russian statistics agency, Rosstat, which has a broader definition of deaths linked to Covid-19, has recorded some 270,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

The recent outbreak was helped by a laborious vaccination campaign, with Russians overwhelmingly suspicious of vaccines developed in their country, the lack of restrictions for months and failure to comply with distancing and mask-wearing rules.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced "total nihilism" and "the treacherous nature of the infection" as the causes of this resurgence.

"We are behind on vaccination compared to many other countries, we have had little success at this level," he also acknowledged, adding, however, that everything necessary had been "provided" by the state.

Moscow has therefore reintroduced bans a week ago, but they remain limited in order to preserve the economy.

Already, during the deadly winter wave, no strict containment had been put in place.

The mayor announced on Friday the cancellation of entertainment events for more than 1,000 people, resulting in the closure of the Euro football fan zone at the Luzhniki Olympic complex.

He extended until June 29 the closure, decreed last weekend, of restaurants, shopping centers or public park facilities, such as playgrounds.

Restaurants and bars will close from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., as has been the case for the past week. 

The mayor warned that other "very strict" measures could intervene quickly. 

Distrust of vaccines

Sergei Sobyanin also decreed, on Wednesday, the compulsory vaccination of employees in the service sector.

Some 60% of them, or about two million people, are due by August 15.

For nearly a year, the state apparatus has been highlighting its 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 calls from the government, President Vladimir Putin first, against a backdrop of mistrust of a population scalded by decades of Soviet and then Russian propaganda and budget cuts in the field of health.

Since December, only 19.4 million Russians out of 146 million have received at least one dose, according to the Gogov site, which aggregates data from regions and media for lack of official national statistics.

In Saint Petersburg, where the epidemic is also starting again, restrictive measures remain limited at a time when the city hosts seven matches and tens of thousands of Euro football fans.

With AFP

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