MOSCOW, April 13. /TASS/. The growth of new coronavirus cases in Russia will be observed for several more days, after which the situation may reach a plateau, Chief Infectious Disease Specialist at Russia’s Federal Biomedical Agency Vladimir Nikiforov said in a live broadcast of TV Channel One on Monday.
"Yes, this is unpleasant. We would want this to stop but this [the growth of new infections] will not cease either today or tomorrow. The growth is expected for several more days, if everything proceeds according to epidemiological standards," he said.
After that, the coronavirus situation in Russia may reach a plateau, he added. "It is not known how long it [the plateau] will persist. The country is enormous. Moscow is the main indicator but there are also other cities, to which people later came from Europe and that is why there will be a little time shift there. There won’t be any spike like in small countries. We will have it stretched out in time," the chief infectious disease specialist said.
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 1,800,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 114,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 428,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 18,328 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 1,470 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 148 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.