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Coronavirus pandemic

Lifting restrictions in Russian regions does not lead to increase in COVID-19 cases — PM

Mikhail Mishustin noted that Russia is documenting a drop in new detected cases

© Valery Matytsin/TASS

MOSCOW, June 18. /TASS/. Lifting some of the restrictions introduced to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus does not lead to an increase in cases of COVID-19, a disease caused by the virus, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said during a government session on Thursday.

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Russia confirms nearly 7,800 new COVID-19 cases

"We see that the lifting [of measures related to the pandemic in Russian regions] does not lead to a rise in new cases [of infection]," he said.

The PM noted that Russia is documenting a drop in new detected cases. He said that for the past two days, the number of daily new COVID-19 cases does not surpass 8,000, while the increase rate has slowed down in the past 24 hours, reaching 1.4%.

"We see that this trend remains on the territory of the Moscow area and practically in all Russian subjects, which gives us cause for a gradual, stage-by-stage exit from the restrictions regime in Russian regions," Mishustin added.

He reminded that 53 Russian regions had begun the first stage of lifting the restrictions, and eight have moved on to the second stage. The PM noted that this process is gradual.

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.

To date, 561,091 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 313,963 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 7,660 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.

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