"The epidemic situation remains tense": 30,752 new cases of COVID-19 were detected in Russia

Over the past day, 30,752 new cases of coronavirus infection have been detected in Russia.

36,976 people fully recovered, 1179 patients died from complications that developed against the background of COVID-19 and concomitant diseases.

In total, 9,895,597 cases of coronavirus have been identified in the country since the beginning of the pandemic.

284,823 patients died, 8,602,067 people recovered.

The largest number of new episodes of the disease was recorded in Moscow - 3004, in St. Petersburg - 2209, the Moscow region - 1854. In other regions, less than 800 cases were recorded per day.

In turn, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on the eve of the meeting of the Presidium of the Coordinating Council under the Cabinet of Ministers for the fight against coronavirus stated that the situation with the incidence in the country remains tense, and at the end of last week, an increase in incidence was noted in 11 constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

“The situation is complicated by the fact that a new strain of coronavirus has been identified in the world and in many countries has already been recorded.

It is not yet clear how it will affect the overall picture.

You have to be ready for any scenario, ”he said.

At the same time, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, indicated that the spread of coronavirus remains quite high.

In her words, it has not dropped below unity over the past 10 days.

“This also makes us think that it is completely premature to remove any restrictive measures today.

The epidemic situation remains tense.

The daily number of reported cases is quite high.

And here any violation of requirements, rules or unreasonable relaxation of the restriction regime will lead to further growth after stabilization, which we are witnessing and which was achieved by rather difficult and hard work of all of us together in different regions, ”she said.

In addition, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, in an interview with Naila Asker-zade on the Russia 1 TV channel, explained why the validity period of PCR tests for coronavirus was reduced from 72 to 48 hours from the moment the result was obtained.

According to her, this had to be done because of the high contagiousness of the omicron strain.

Popova also said that the number of detected cases of COVID-19 among arrivals from African countries "is increasing day by day," while 24 people were hospitalized in hospitals due to a positive PCR test.

In addition, she stated that so far only two cases of omicron have been confirmed.

“The patients are under medical supervision.

And I am absolutely sure that with such control, which is carried out over them - they are looked after by professional doctors and supervised by their very high level specialists - I hope that everything will be fine there, ”she said.

Meanwhile, scientists from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong have published an image of the omicron coronavirus strain using an electron microscope.

Photos are presented at low and high magnification, RIA Novosti reports.

Prof Malik Peiris from @HKU_SPH and Prof John Nicholls from the Department of Pathology have released an electron microscope image of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. # COVID19 # OmicronVariant

For more: https://t.co/lyG0wLtYK1

- HKU Medicine (@hkumed) December 8, 2021

In addition, the World Health Organization reported that as of December 7, omicron had been confirmed in 57 countries around the world.

At the same time, WHO did not rule out that omicron in January will dominate among other variants of coronavirus in Europe. 

“The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control has predicted that if 1% of SARS-CoV-2 infections are caused by the omicron variant, it will become dominant in Europe, accounting for over 50% of the total number of new infections, with a growth advantage of 120% to 1 January 2022, ”RIA Novosti reports with reference to the WHO weekly bulletin.

The spread of the omicron strain is alarming as it causes pneumonia faster than previously known SARS-CoV-2 variants.

This was announced by the head of the branch of the SSC VB "Vector" of Rospotrebnadzor in Yekaterinburg, Alexander Semyonov.

“When a person was infected with an“ old ”coronavirus, it took up to 10-11 days from the moment of infection to pneumonia.

During this time, you could come from the farthest village to the hospital, where you will be provided with qualified assistance.

Now it is 3-5 days ", - quoted by the newspaper" Izvestia ".