MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/. Russia has been successful in keeping the daily coronavirus growth rate at 14-17%, Head of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing Anna Popova said at a briefing on Friday.
"I would like to point out that Russia is keeping the daily infection growth rate at 14-17$, preventing it from exceeding the 20% level," she said.
At the same time, the watchdog’s chief added that infectious disease doctors and researchers usually took per-100,000 population figures into account.
"Russia’s per-100,000 population figure currently stands at 17, which is five times lower than in Canada, ten times lower than in Germany and 20 times lower than in Switzerland. We believe that this comparison is more correct," Popova noted.
Coronavirus pandemic
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 2,190,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 147,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 553,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 32,008 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 2,590 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 273 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.