MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin assured that the government will continue to work on new measures to support the economy in a pandemic.

"The next step will be to develop and adopt measures for individual sectors of the economy," he said. He recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin "has already issued an instruction to allocate funds to support air travel." "I ask the sectoral ministries to prepare proposals for the construction sector, civil aviation, and light industry," Mishustin said. He stressed that "the government will continue to work on developing additional support measures."

On Wednesday, at a meeting with cabinet members, Russian President Vladimir Putin asked the government to prepare new economic support measures amid the coronavirus pandemic. According to him, it is necessary to constantly evaluate the effectiveness and adequacy of the measures taken and, the president is sure, new solutions will be required, both in the economy as a whole and in individual sectors. Putin ordered to prepare such decisions now, which means to quickly work out and submit a specific plan of action for each of the basic, supporting sectors of the economy, including support for import substitution programs in industry. The president intends to consider the situation in various sectors of the economy due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named COVID-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 2,000,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 134,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 516,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, a total of 27,938 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 2,304 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 232 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.