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Covid cases in St Petersburg rise after Euro 2020

Moscow, Jul 7 (EFE).- The number of coronavirus cases in St Petersburg has spiked since the city hosted several Euro 2020 games last month, Russian deputy prime minister Tatyana Golikova confirmed on Wednesday.

“Although the Euro organizers tried to comply with the restrictive measures, people could not in the heat of the moment,” she said during a virtual meeting with President Vladimir Putin.

“Currently, we observe an increase in the city, but the situation is under control,” she said, adding that the authorities are working to “apply the full spectrum of measures necessary to curb this spike”.

 St Petersburg hosted seven Euro 2020 games, including six round-robin clashes and a quarterfinal match, which were attended by over 150,000 fans, deputy prime minister Dmitry Chernyshenko said on Monday.

The city has been struggling with a third wave of infections driven by the Delta variant since June.

Putin recently justified hosting Euro 2020 matches in St Petersburg amid the pandemic by the obligation to “fulfill the commitments assumed as a state to organize these important sporting events.”

Russia, the world’s fifth worst-hit country by the virus following the US, India, Brazil and France, has detected 23,962 fresh cases over the past 24 hours, for a total of 5,682,624 infections. EFE

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