MOSCOW, May 8. /TASS/. A next phase of Moscow lockdown easing will depend on how strictly people will abide by the self-isolation rules, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said on Thursday.
"The next stage depends on us, on how strictly we will control and abide by the self-isolation requirements, on our attention to the people around us, on how we will be taking care of each other," Sobyanin said in an interview with Rossiya-1 television. These are the factors that will determine further moves towards a possible relaxation of lockdown rules.
Sobyanin also reiterated that all industrial and construction enterprises would reopen in Moscow on May 12. "A sizable part of these enterprises - the defense and medical industry - remained open. However, a huge number of [enterprises] around them, a huge number of small productions, were closed. We are opening them from [May] 12. The same refers to the construction sites," Sobyanin said.
He explained that at these enterprises people work as close teams. "As for the sector of services, we have an indefinite number of people, and one person working in the beauty sector can infect hundreds," the mayor summed up.
The real number of coronavirus cases in Moscow accounts for 2% or 2.5% of citizens or nearly 300,000 people, Mayor Sobyanin told Rossiya-24 TV channel earlier in the day.
"The goal of the city authorities now is to record the maximum possible number of people who have contracted the coronavirus. This is necessary in order to self-isolate them and prevent the infection of their contacts. "For this, a giant work is underway and over the past week we have doubled the number of tests. Earlier, some 20,000 tests were conducted and now nearly 40,000," the mayor said.
According to the latest data, some 92,676 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the Russian capital. To date, a total of 177,160 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 23,803 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 1,625 fatalities nationwide.