MOSCOW, August 1. /TASS/. The tense COVID-19 situation in Russia may persist for up to three years as the country has failed to reach the herd immunity yet, a senior Russian scientist said on Sunday.
Alexander Gorelov, deputy director of the Russian sanitary watchdog’s Central Research Institute of Epidemiology and a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences spoke in a live broadcast of the Rossiya-1 TV channel.
"The tense situation may persist for no more than two or maximum three years… Unfortunately, yes [new COVID-19 outbreaks can be expected]. This is because we have not reached the 60% [herd immunity] level," the expert said, commenting on the probability of further novel coronavirus outbreaks.
The delta strain of COVID-19 prevails in Russia, he added. "The delta [strain] has been active on about 80% of the [country’s] territory. There are regions, first of all, the Far East, where the delta strain is not predominant yet," he specified.
Almost 198 million people have been infected with the novel coronavirus in the world since the start of the pandemic and about 4.2 million have died. Russia has registered a total of 6,288,677 coronavirus infections, 5,625,890 recoveries and 159,352 fatalities, according to the data of the federal anti-coronavirus crisis center. The Russian government has set up a hotline to inform the public about the coronavirus situation in the country.