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Coronavirus pandemic

Russia’s upper house approves major fines for healthy citizens’ quarantine violation

Citizens will face a fine of between 15,000 rubles ($200) and 40,000 rubles ($500) for violating quarantine measures provoking further spread of disease

MOSCOW, March 31. /TASS/. Russia’s Federation Council (upper house of parliament) has convened for an urgent plenary meeting and approved amendments to the Russian Code of Administrative Offences introducing fines of up to 300,000 rubles ($3,800) for citizens who break quarantine rules when not infected by diseases or viruses.

In accordance with the document, citizens will face a fine of between 15,000 rubles ($200) and 40,000 rubles ($500) for violating quarantine measures provoking further spread of disease. Officials have their fines set between 50,000 rubles ($635) and 150,000 rubles ($1,900), while legal entities will have to pay between 200,000 rubles ($2,500) and 500,000 rubles ($6,350) or face administrative suspension of their business activities of up to 30 days.

If these violations resulted in health complications or death of other people but do not qualify as a crime, then fines will increase for all categories: citizens will be fined between 150,000 rubles ($1,900) and 300,000 rubles ($3,800), officials will pay between 300,000 rubles ($3,800) and 500,000 rubles ($6,350), while legal entities will face a fine of between 500,000 rubles ($6,350) and 1 million rubles ($12,700) or face administrative suspension of their business activities of up to 90 days.

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One in five Russians strongly worried over coronavirus issue, poll shows

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities 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 more than 160 countries, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. To date, more than 786,600 people have been infected worldwide and over 37,800 have died, while more than 165,800 have recovered.

So far, a total of 2,337 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, while 121 patients have recovered. Moscow accounts for the majority of cases (1,613). According to current data, on March 31 12:00 Moscow time, 17 fatalities were recorded. The Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public informed about the coronavirus situation.

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