Covid-19 in Russia: Putin calls on Russians to get vaccinated and declares a week off

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on October 20, 2021. AP - Alexei Druzhinin

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1 min

The Covid-19 has been breaking daily records for contaminations and deaths in Russia for weeks.

In the last three days, more than 1,000 dailies have been officially counted, and probably triple according to independent experts.

So far, the authorities had backed down from any coercive measures.

This time, they take a first small step.

President Vladimir Putin ordered, Wednesday, October 20, a large nonworking week in early November.

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With our correspondent in Moscow,

Holidays for everyone

instead of confinement: the method had already been used last May.

Many of them, the Russians in the big cities, had spent the spring in their dacha (second home).

The country had won a reprieve but not the battle against Covid-19.

Variant delta, weak restrictions, weak vaccination, the cocktail is explosive.

So, for the first time, Vladimir Poutine was very clear: “ 

 "

Today, the Russian president is touting

to the Russians, and again a few weeks ago to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

But he waited until March 2021 to receive an injection.

And yet, at that time, the head of state had not said whether he had used the national vaccine properly.

According to data collected by researchers at Johns-Hopkins University, Covid-19 has killed more than 222,000 in Russia (official figures).

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• Russia

• Coronavirus

• Health and medicine

• Vaccines

• Vladimir Poutine