ZCZC
BFF-20
HEALTH-VIRUS-RUSSIA
Moscow records pandemic high for Covid cases second day running
MOSCOW, June 19, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Russia’s capital Moscow on Saturday
registered 9,120 new coronavirus infections in 24 hours, a second consecutive
high, according to government figures.
Saturday’s record topped the previous day’s total of 9,056 new infections,
according to the government’s coronavirus tally, ballooning from 3,000 daily
just two weeks ago.
The new cases are being driven by the highly infectious Delta variant
first identified in India and have threatened to overwhelm Moscow’s
hospitals, as officials rush to roll out new beds for Covid patients.
To deal with the onslaught of new patients, Deputy Moscow Mayor Anastasia
Rakova said in a statement that the city would expand hospital beds to 24,000
from 17,000 over the next two weeks.
Moscow, the epicentre of Russia’s outbreak, accounted Saturday for more
than half of the country’s new cases, which stood at nearly 5.3 million since
the start of the pandemic.
The total caseload is the sixth-highest worldwide, according to an AFP
tally.
On Friday, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that the Delta variant
accounted for nearly 90 percent of new cases.
The highly infectious variant has forced the mayor to reintroduce a host
of pandemic restrictions in the Russian capital, which for months had all but
returned to life as normal.
Russian authorities had banked on their four vaccines — Sputnik V,
EpiVacCorona, CoviVac and the one-dose Sputnik Light — to curtail the
pandemic, but has faced a populace skeptical of inoculation.
Although Russia rolled out its jab drive in December, just 19 million out
of a population of some 146 million have received at least one dose of a
vaccine, according to the Gogov website which tallies Covid figures from the
regions and the media in the absence of a national statistics office.
One recent independent survey said 60 percent of Russians do not intend to
be vaccinated.
But on Wednesday, Sobyanin ordered mandatory vaccination for residents of
the Russian capital working in the service industry, saying some 60 percent
would have to be fully inoculated by August 15.
BSS/AFP/SY/1607hrs