Health

Russia reports biggest daily spike in coronavirus cases

Moscow, May 3 (efe-epa).- Russia reported its highest number of coronavirus cases in a single day on Sunday, with 10,633 new Covid-19 cases.

The spike brought the total number of people known to be infected with the coronavirus to 134,687, according to the country’s health authorities.

Russian officials have said the rise was due to an increase in testing, with more than 40,000 people being screened a day in Moscow.

Authorities also added that up to half of the fresh cases were people who had not experienced any symptoms but had been tested due to their line of work, such as medics.

There were also 58 fatalities from the disease during the last 24 hours, bringing Russia’s death toll to 1,280 out of a population of 144 million, according to official daily figures published online.

Although there was a record rise in the number of confirmed infections, 8.3 per cent more than the previous day, the rate of deaths had barely increased.

The number of confirmed infections have doubled in the last 10 days, while in this same period the number of patients who have recovered from the virus has quadrupled and now stands at 16,639.

Moscow, home to more than 12.6 million people, has been the country’s main site of infection with more than half of confirmed cases and deaths, 68,606 and 729, respectively.

Sergey Sobyanin, mayor of the capital city, warned on Saturday that mathematical studies and models have indicated that the real number of infection is around two per cent of the city’s population, amounting to around 250,000 people.

Moscow authorities have stressed that lockdown measures have helped to contain the outbreak in some ways but they underlined the need for citizens to act responsibly and respect the self-isolation regime in force.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has been hospitalised after testing positive for the coronavirus on Thursday.

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