MOSCOW, January 6. /TASS/. Russia’s coronavirus spread rate sank on Wednesday to below 0.9 for the second time since the start of the pandemic, according to TASS estimates based on the anti-coronavirus crisis center’s data.
The figure declined from 0.91 to 0.89. Last time this level was recorded on May 19 and did not go down further since then.
In Moscow the coronavirus spread rate stood at 0.76 for the second day, the lowest level since June 20.
Only in one out of ten regions with the highest caseload the coronavirus spread rate exceeded 1. This is the Voronezh Region in central European Russia where the figure stood at 1.02. In southern Russia’s Rostov Region the spread rate reached 1.
In the Sverdlovsk Region, the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region and the Krasnoyarsk Region the figure amounted to 0.99, in St. Petersburg it dropped to 0.96, in the Nizhny Novgorod Region to 0.91, in the Moscow Region to 0.81 and in the Arkhangelsk Region to 0.69.
The coronavirus spread rate indicates the average number of people one sick person can infect. It is one of the criteria to be considered when it comes to removing restrictions introduced in the spring to prevent the infection from spreading. The country’s authorities particularly take the coronavirus spread rate into account when making decisions on resuming international flights. According to the Russian sanitary watchdog, it is possible to reopen the country’s border to foreign nationals in case their countries’ coronavirus spread rates remain at or below 1 for a week.