The Russian government ruled out that new restrictions against the coronavirus will be implemented despite a sharp increase in the number of infections recorded in recent days.
“The health system resists, mortality is not higher than in the periods we had these last two years,” said Anna Popova, head of the Russian health agency Rospotrebnadzor.
“And currently we don’t see any reason for special restrictions,” the official continued in an interview with the Ria Novosti news agency, which was reproduced by AFP.
Since the start of the pandemic, Russia registered more than 680,000 deaths, one of the worst balances in the world according to the specialized website Govov, which cites official statistics.
But the authorities refuse to impose a new drastic lockdown like the one implemented in the first wave, in the spring of 2020, to preserve a fragile economy.
With the arrival of the more contagious Omicron variant, the country is facing an exponential increase in the number of cases these days.
On January 29, it exceeded the level of 100,000 new daily infections for the first time, according to government figures.
The new cases reported this Wednesday, corresponding to Tuesday’s statistics, were 141,883, compared to 30,000 two weeks ago.
The number of deaths, according to the Government, remains limited, with 678 this Wednesday. At the most critical moment of the pandemic, the average number of daily deaths was around 1,200.
Russia is more exposed to the virus due to the low level of vaccination, with less than 48% of the population inoculated, according to Govov.
