MOSCOW, November 3. /TASS/. Russian athletes vaccinated against the novel coronavirus with Sputnik V jabs have been cleared to participate in the upcoming 2021/2022 Skeleton World Cup, Danil Chaban, the head coach of the Russian national skeleton team, told TASS on Wednesday.

"Just like in the previous season, PCR [polymerase chain reaction] tests will be required a day before the start of the training and competition days," Chaban said.

"We have the access for Russian athletes, who were vaccinated with Sputnik V," he continued. "We will be required to undergo PCR tests once in three days."

"There are no problems with the access [to the tournament] whatsoever and all athletes have been cleared to participate," Chaban added.

The 2021/2022 Skeleton World Cup series is set to kick off on November 19 in Austria’s Innsbruck-Igls.

Russia has so far registered five COVID-19 vaccines. They are Sputnik V and Sputnik Light developed by the Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, EpiVacCorona and EpiVacCorona-N created by the Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology and CoviVac from the Chumakov Federal Scientific Center for Research and Development of Immune and Biological Products.

Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona, EpiVacCorona-N and CoviVac are two-dose shots, while Sputnik Light is a single-dose vaccine.

COVID-19

In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a 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. According to the latest statistics, over 248,532,500 people have been infected worldwide and more than 5,032,800 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 225,186,380 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.