MOSCOW, July 7. /TASS/. Russia has documented 6,368 cases of COVID-19, a disease caused by the novel coronavirus, in the past 24 hours, with the daily increase rate reaching a record low of 0.9%, the anti-coronavirus crisis center informed reporters on Tuesday.
In the past week, the increase rate has not surpassed 1%. In the past 12 days, under 7,000 cases of infection have been reported daily. The total number of those infected in Russia has reached 694,230. Currently, 219,856 people (31.7%) diagnosed with COVID-19 are undergoing treatment in Russia.
Another 9,551 coronavirus patients were discharged from hospitals in Russia after treatment in the past 24 hours, the total number of recoveries has climbed to 463,880. According to the crisis center, recoveries have exceeded 66.8% of the total number of coronavirus cases in Russia.
The coronavirus spread coefficient in Russia and Moscow has reached 0.99.
Minimal increase rate
In the first seven days of July, Russia has documented a total of 46,381 cases of infection compared to 61,830 cases in the corresponding period of last month (a 25% decrease). The daily increase rate has dropped to 1% compared to about 2% last month.
Moscow has shown a dramatic decrease in new cases. On June 1-7, 14,226 people were diagnosed with the coronavirus, while on July 1-7, only 4,576 cases of COVID-19 have been documented.
The number of those recovered has remained on the same level: 54,848 in the first week of July compared to 51,230 on the first week of June. A month ago, the share of those recovered reached 48.5%, while as of Tuesday morning, it has gone up to 66.8%.
Lethality rate
On Tuesday, the crisis center informed that 198 people had died from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours compared to 135 the day before, bringing the total fatality count to 10,494. Since the beginning of the outbreak, 1.51% of all COVID-19 patients died in Russia.
In the first week of July, 1,174 people have died in Russia from the virus, compared to 1,166 in the first week of June.
Moscow has documented the highest amount of deaths in the country: 3,999 (38.1% of all recorded deaths), however, recently, the number of daily deaths has been subsiding. In the past week, the crisis center reported 203 deaths compared to 442 in the first week of June.
St. Petersburg comes in second on the fatality count with 1,437 deaths (13.7% of all recorded deaths in Russia), including 48 in the past 24 hours.
The Moscow Region comes in third with 965 deaths (9.2% of all recorded fatalities). In the Moscow Region, the lethality rate from COVID-19 is significantly lower than in Moscow or St. Petersburg: 1.62% compared to 1.77% in Moscow and 5.5% in St. Petersburg.
Situation in Russian regions
The Moscow Region, which comes in second in Russia on the total amount of COVID-19 cases, has documented 177 people infected in the past 24 hours, which is the lowest figure since April 11, when 152 residents of the region were diagnosed with the virus. In the first week of July, 1,952 cases of COVID-19 have been recorded, compared to 5,237 in the corresponding period of June.
The Nizhny Novgorod Region has documented 198 cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. For the first time since May 5, fewer than 200 people have been diagnosed with the virus. The weekly increase rate has also gone down from 2,303 in the first week of June to 1,543 in the first week of July.
The coronavirus spread coefficient also points to the stabilization of the situation. In seven out of ten regions with the highest number of people infected, the spread coefficient is lower than 1. The lowest coefficient has been documented in the Moscow Region (0.84). In the Voronezh Region, it has reached 0.9, in the Nizhny Novgorod Region - 0.95, in the Krasnoyarsk Region - 0.96, in the Irkutsk Region - 0.98, in the Rostov Region - 0.99. Moscow has reported a 0.99 coefficient.
The coefficient has been higher than 1 in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District (1.04), the Sverdlovsk Region (1.05), and St. Petersburg (1.07).
The spread coefficient is calculated using the formula provided by the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Well-Being in its recommendations for regions on easing lockdown measures imposed due to the coronavirus spread. It should not exceed 1 for shifting to the first phase of easing restrictions in a Russian region. The coefficient shows how many people on average get the coronavirus infection from one infected person prior to their isolation, the watchdog explained.
According to the recommendations, Russian regions where this figure equals or is below 1 can begin the first stage of lifting the restrictions if they have enough hospital beds reserved for coronavirus patients and conduct enough tests for the virus. If the coefficient is lower than 0.8, Russian regions can move on to the second stage of lifting the restrictions, if it is lower than 0.5, they can begin the third stage.
About the virus
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 11,756,400 people have been infected worldwide and more than 541,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 6,753,100 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.