MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/. The rising incidence of COVID-19 in Russia was caused in particular by the change in the dominant strain of coronavirus, Deputy Director of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing’s Central Research Institute of Epidemiology Alexander Gorelov told TASS.

"At present, a tense epidemiological situation in Russia and in the world remains due to the changes in different strains of the coronavirus. Each change in the dominant strain is usually accompanied by rising incidence. Right now we are going through this stage," he said.

The incidence of coronavirus infection in Russia will remain high for another month and a half after reaching the maximum values for the daily number of infected, Gorelov told.

"Having reached the maximum values, we will enter the stage of stabilization, which lasts for about a month or a month and a half, under epidemiological laws," he said.

Only after that the incidence will start gradually to decline, he added.

"How confidently we move towards this [decline in incidence] depends on our commitment to sanitary rules and vaccination," he said.

Earlier, the director of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the world is at the initial stage of the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, about 188.4 million people have been infected with the coronavirus in the world, more than 4 million have died.

In Russia, according to the federal operational headquarters for the fight against coronavirus, 5,882,295 cases of infection were registered, 5,278,976 people recovered, 146,069 died.