MOSCOW, April 15. /TASS/. Deputy CEO, Chief Designer of the Energia Space Rocket Corporation Yevgeny Mikrin has contracted the coronavirus infection, a source in the domestic space industry told TASS on Wednesday.
"Mikrin has passed two tests for the coronavirus and both are positive. He has been included in the list of 30 persons officially declared as infected in Roscosmos [Russia’s state space corporation]," the source said.
The Energia chief designer is currently in self-isolation at home because he has no clinical symptoms of the disease, the source added.
No other coronavirus cases have been found among the heads of Roscosmos enterprises and its headquarters as of today, the source informed.
The Energia Space Rocket Corporation declined to comment on the information provided by the source on the coronavirus infection contracted by Mikrin. "We are not commenting on the information related to personal data and medical confidentiality."
The Energia Space Rocket Corporation announced in March that it had approved a special regime of work amid the coronavirus epidemic. Thus, the larger part of the Energia staff are in self-isolation at home. The corporation is involving employees to fulfil particular work under individual schedules. The workforce is provided with individual protective gear.
For employees visiting the enterprise’s offices and workshops upon reasonable necessity, mandatory control of their body temperature has been introduced. All the work premises are disinfected several times a day.
Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin earlier said that the number of coronavirus cases in the Russian space industry had grown to 30. He said that four persons had recovered from the disease. Nine days ago, only nine Roscosmos employees were diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. All of them were receiving medical treatment.
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 126,800 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 485,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 24,490 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 1,986 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 198 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.