MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/. Russia’s sanitary watchdog does not expect a third wave of the coronavirus epidemic in the country, Vadim Pokrovsky, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and head of the sanitary watchdog’s Federal AIDS Research Center, said on Tuesday.
"Franky speaking, I don’t anticipate a third wave at all. The number of those having immunity to COVID is growing quite rapidly because many people have already had the disease and thanks to vaccination. So, no serious surge should be expected," he said in an interview with the Govorit Moskva radio station.
According to Pokrovsky, some 40% of Moscow’s population had antibodies to COVID-19 in early March. "The number of those inoculated is rapidly increasing and I think very soon, as early as May, we will reach the 60-percent immunization mark, not far from the the 70-percent level that is believed to be sufficient to stop the epidemic," he explained.
Russian Deputy Health Minister Tatiana Semyonova said earlier that coronavirus statistics in Russia indicated a possibility of a third wave of the epidemic.