According to him, a lot of factors affect this indicator, including some that are not obvious.

“Apart from masks, the countries differ in their mentality,” he said.

As Kryuchkov noted, the Swedes, for example, follow the recommendations of state bodies better than the Russians to the obligatory instructions.

“There are other factors.

For example, different seasons, population density, decisiveness of states - for example, we stop transport or not, block neighborhoods or don't block them, ”he said.

He also added that, of course, it affects the incidence and whether people adhere to the mask regime or not.

Earlier, the head of the department of microbiology of latent infections, virologist at the Gamaleya Center, Viktor Zuev, in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper, doubted that influenza vaccination could reduce the severity of COVID-19.