MOSCOW, November 2./TASS/. There is no need for extending the period of non-working days in Russia announced amid the spread of coronavirus, since this may negatively impact the mood of society and lower people’s immunity, Fyodor Lisitsyn, chief specialist of the Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, told Rossiya-24 television channel on Tuesday.
"I don’t see any need whatsoever in extending for two weeks these nationwide non-working days. This will rather cause social harm, will make society angrier and will lower immunity due to social anxieties of the people who are temporarily out of work and don’t know how they will get their salaries," he said.
Lisitsin assured the audience that the introduced non-working days would be enough for delaying the peak of the incidence. "This is what these lockdowns are for - to stretch the peak in time. Practice has shown that they won’t significantly change the number of infections. While by extending them in time, we give the medics the possibility to help all, instead of trying to select," the expert explained.
He said he was pinning more hopes on frost and the climate, which stop the problem of rhinovirus infections, since the virus is spreading worse at least outdoors, Lisitsin explained.
About 247.2 million people have been infected with coronavirus worldwide since the pandemic began, and over five million people have died. According to the Russian anti-coronavirus crisis center, the country has reported 8,593,200 coronavirus cases in total. As many as 7,412,631 coronavirus patients have recovered and 240,871 people have died as a result of the virus.