MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has said that the city is facing more and more difficult situation as coronavirus spreads.

"The coronavirus situation is becoming more difficult and dramatic with every passing day. We are approaching peak numbers of spring in detecting [COVID-19]. The number of hospitalizations has surpassed 1,000 today. The growth continues," he wrote in his blog.

Moscow is ranked first in Russia in the number of coronavirus infections, the number of newly identified cases has been growing lately. Overall, the city has recorded 311,559 cases of COVID-19 with 4,082 of them in the past 24 hours. Moreover, 255,100 people have recovered and 5,401 died from the coronavirus-related complications.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed 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 35,732,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 1,046,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 26,891,410 individuals have recovered from the illness across the world.

To date, 1,237,504 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 988,576 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 21,663 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.