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Coronavirus pandemic

Expert says Russia to expect more detected cases of COVID-19 in autumn than spring

He noted that when evaluating the situation one should look at the number of hospital beds available and occupied

© Sergei Konkov/TASS

MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/. The number of the coronavirus infections in Russia during the second epidemic increase will surpass the spring values due to increased testing volumes. However, when evaluating the situation one should look at the hospital bed occupancy rate and not at the statistics of cases detected which includes both patients undergoing treatment and symptomless virus carriers who do not need to be hospitalized, Chief of Medicine of the Lider Meditsiny medical center, Yevgeny Timakov, an infectious disease specialist and a vaccinologist, told TASS.

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"Considering the number of hospitalizations the second epidemic increase should not be more severe compared to the one in spring but of course, more people will be detected. There are more tests being performed, the diagnostics increased. Naturally, the number of cases detected will be higher than in spring," he said.

He noted that when evaluating the situation one should look at the number of hospital beds available and occupied. Currently, according to him, the situation in the country regarding these parameters is stable, the capacities are sufficient. The reserve hospitals are being opened in order not to convert medical institutions to exclusive coronavirus treatment and to continue providing medical aid to citizens with other issues.

"We are paying attention to wrong parameters. The issue of the number of patients and the number of detections - those are completely different things. The number of those who got sick is several-fold lower, while 10,000-11,000 are those people who were PCR-tested with positive results. This doesn’t mean they got sick, were hospitalized, require certain treatment. All these people do not occupy hospital beds," the expert explained.

The number of tests for the presence of the coronavirus conducted has increased significantly compared to spring so the detection of carriers will be much higher, he concluded.

According to the latest statistics, over 35,732,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 1,046,000 deaths have been reported. To date, 1,237,504 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 988,576 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 21,663 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.

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