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Coronavirus pandemic

Around 1.5 mln of Moscow residents received both components of COVID-19 vaccine

According to the mayor, the strength of the mutated strain has caused "an explosive, simply huge" uptick in hospitalizations

MOSCOW, June 18. /TASS/. About 1.5 mln Moscow residents have already been vaccinated against the new coronavirus infection, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said on Friday.

"Our so-called immunity of the population, which has protection against the virus, was at the level of 60% - it includes those who have recovered… and those who have been given the vaccine - already today 1.5 mln [people]," Sobyanin said in an interview with Rossiya 1 TV channel.

Moscow is in first place among the Russian regions in terms of the number of coronavirus cases. On June 16, chief sanitary doctor of the capital Elena Andreeva ordered 60% of employees of enterprises working in the fields of trade, services, public catering, housing and communal services, transport, education, and entertainment to vaccinate against coronavirus.

Sobyanin said earlier on Friday that a new coronavirus strain detected in Moscow, the ‘Delta’variant, has been found in almost 90% of new cases, it spreads faster and is more aggressive than the Wuhan strain.

"The updates we have received say that 89.3% of the sick people [in Moscow] have a mutated coronavirus, the so-called Delta, which is the Indian variant. It happens to be more aggressive and spreads faster. The most unpleasant thing is that in order to resist it, an individual’s immune status, their number of antibodies, need to be almost twice as high as against the Wuhan virus," he said.

According to the mayor, the strength of the mutated strain has caused "an explosive, simply huge" uptick in hospitalizations.

Earlier on Friday, Russia reported 17,262 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the highest daily number since February 1, the anti-coronavirus crisis center said. The total case count has reached 5,281,309. There are currently 302,205 active coronavirus cases in Russia.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of 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.

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