MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/. Most coronavirus cases in Russia are registered among elderly people with underlying health conditions, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova told reporters on Saturday.
"We still see the tendency of older ages to prevail. Regrettably, as you know, Russia has registered 43 deaths as of today. They are senior citizens, but not simply senior citizens. They suffer from serious chronic diseases, which are aggravated by the added new coronavirus infection," she said.
Golikova pointed out that the coronavirus cases among children and young Russians were imported and through close contact.
"We have traced it very clearly since March, but we were not heeded then, unfortunately. We asked our citizens at the first stages of the crisis center’s operation not to go abroad, because we realized then how the infection spreads and so any arrival at the outbreak hotspot could result in arrivals of infected people in the territory of the Russian Federation. In fact, that was what we had after the holidays in February and then in March," she said.
According to Golikova, coronavirus was imported to Russia from 73 countries, mostly from Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the United Arab Emirates.
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. To date, more than 1,000,000 people have been infected worldwide and over 53,000 deaths have been reported. That said, over 213,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
So far, a total of 4,731 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 333 patients having recovered from the virus. Moscow handles the bulk of the cases (3,357). The country’s latest data indicates 43 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.