MOSCOW, May 28. /TASS/. The COVID-19 fatality peak in Moscow can be expected in early June, Alexander Lukashev, director of the Institute of Medical Parasitology, Tropical and Vector-borne Diseases at Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, said.

"The fatalities lag behind the infections by approximately 14-17 days. So, there are people who got infected during the May influx of infections and if their illness turns to a critical state, they are in high risk of dying in the coming days. Therefore, the mortality will go up next week but then will start to drop. Since Moscow had the virus peak approximately on May 11, the mortality peak will fall on June 2, approximately," he said in an interview with Izvestia newspaper published Thursday.

Lukashev also noted that the outbreaks are slowing down in Moscow and other Russian regions, but still it is not the time to relax.

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 5,807,100 people have been infected worldwide and more than 357,800 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 2,510,300 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, a total of 379,051 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 150,993 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 4,142 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.