MOSCOW, January 2. /TASS/. More than 100,000 Moscow residents made appointments to get inoculated against coronavirus before the New Year, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in an interview with the Russian TV.
"More than a dozen of thousands [of Moscow residents] have been applying in the last few days. As of today, around 100,000 [people] made their appointments and about 50,000 had their jabs. And this is before the New Year. What will happen later?" he said.
The mayor is confident that there will be more and more people wishing to get vaccinated in Moscow. According to him, the coronavirus pandemic cannot be defeated without vaccination. "We will either be sick forever or will get vaccinated and will go through all the seasonal waves just like with the seasonal flu. The vaccination process itself is not an easy one, it is much more complicated that the flu vaccination because it is a different form of vaccine which requires special transporting, maintenance and storage. Additionally, everyone who comes to vaccination stations gets a medical checkup," Sobyanin added.
He also noted that healthcare spending is the biggest article of the city budget for 2021.
Sobyanin also thinks that the Russian capital has become the epicenter of the novel coronavirus pandemic in Russia.
"Moscow wasn’t the exception, on the contrary, this is where the pandemic hit the hardest: it’s the largest city in Russia, a huge hub that many people pass through. Of course, such big cities as Moscow were hit by the epidemic first, they faced the risks of the epidemic. The fact that Moscow withstood it, managed to provide quality healthcare to all Moscow residents, is worth a lot," Sobyanin said.
The mayor wished Moscow residents to be more optimistic. "This year was very tough for us psychologically, but I want us to look into the future with confidence that we will overcome all the difficulties. We’ve got everything: a wonderful city, hardworking Muscovites, talented Muscovites. We can do this," Sobyanin said.
"A huge thank you to medics who were on the frontline. A huge thank you to the Muscovites who overcame this period with teamwork, compassion, help for our family and loved ones," the mayor concluded.
Moscow ranks first in Russia on COVID-19 cases. In total, 815,676 cases of COVID-19 were documented in Moscow, including 5,907 in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, 633,702 patients have recovered and 11,280 have died.