MOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/. Scientists of Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia have analyzed the spread of coronavirus globally which revealed that Moscow in particular already overcame four outbreaks, reads the statement issued by the press service for Russia’s science and higher education ministry Tuesday.
"The first wave in Moscow emerged in early March and is the longest of all the waves. It is this wave that outlines the timespan of the epidemic - late June - and had 73,000 infections. Failure to observe the strict restrictive measures in Moscow led to rise of two more waves in late April and pushed the peak of the epidemic to May 7, contributing to the infections by 109,000 more patients. The fourth wave started in late May," the statement says.
It is noted that the fourth wave hit the city as some businesses reopened but was short-lived. However, it still resulted in 19,000 new cases, bringing the total to 201,000. "We believe that as restrictions are gradually eased, new waves will emerge. It is important that they be short and, to this end, every Moscow resident should observe precautionary measures," the researchers underlined.
Apart from Moscow and Russia, the university scientists used non-linear dynamics methods to calculate the spread of epidemics in China, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Israel, Sweden, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Spain, France and the United States.
For instance, the research authors say Italy has three waves emerging almost simultaneously in three different places, most possibly in Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto. On March 1, a fourth wave broke out additionally which predetermined the whole epidemic spread scenario - local and global peaks in infections and the epidemic timeline.
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 6,383,800 people have been infected worldwide and more than 377,700 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 2,920,880 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 423,741 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 186,985 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 5,037 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.