MOSCOW, May 31. /TASS/. Coronavirus lockdowns in Russia will not be lifted overnight. Regions will lift such restriction depending on the epidemic situation, Anna Popova, chief of Russia’s sanitary watchdog, said on Sunday.
"Russia will not be through this situation overnight, at least through the lockdowns. Regions will do it independently. But we hope the process will be successful. Today, a number of regions have already begun phase one, some - much less, of course, are at the second phase. Nevertheless, we see the dynamics. The process goes on, it is positive," she said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.
According to Popova, more and more regions demonstrate downwards tendencies in terms of the novel coronavirus spread coefficient. This coefficient shows how many people contract a disease from an infected person before his or her isolation. The sanitary watchdog recommends regional authorities begin to lift the coronavirus lockdowns when this coefficient is less or equals 1. Apart from that, two more criteria - the availability of specialized hospital beds and the scope of testing - are to be met. When the coefficient is lower than 0.8, a region may begin phase two of easing the lockdowns, and when it is lower than 0.5, the third phase may begin.