MOSCOW, April 24. /TASS/. Coronavirus lockdown measures may be further toughened in Russia if people violate the existing ones, Anna Popova, chief of Russia’s sanitary watchdog, said on Friday.
"Any mistake at any of these stages may throw us back to the starting point of these stages. It is crystal clear that if we fail to persuade people to obey by the requirements and observe all the restrictions, we will be back from where we started. And, probably, and I wish it never happened, we will be forced to re-impose tough measures to minimize contacts between people," she said.
She warned that now it is too early to open all businesses and organizations closed over the coronavirus epidemic. She said that there are risks of further spread of the disease and recurrence of the exponential growth and at least 14 days of lockdown are needed to prevent that.
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 2,700,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 191,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 750,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 68,622 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 5,568 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 615 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.