Russia has surpassed ten million coronavirus infections after registering almost 30,000 new cases

Russian authorities confirmed on Sunday that the country has crossed the threshold of ten million coronavirus infections after registering almost 30,000 cases and 1,100 deaths over the last day, in a report published after scientists in the country sequenced four independent strains of the Omicron variant.

The national operational centre for the fight against coronavirus has reported that 29,929 positive cases and 1,132 deaths have been detected in the last 24 hours, bringing the total figures since the start of the pandemic to 10,016,896 cases and 289,483 deaths, respectively.

The capital, Moscow, has once again recorded the highest number of cases and deaths, with 2,862 and 88, respectively, while St. Petersburg has reported 2,012 positive cases and 63 deaths.

The agency said that a total of 8,709,964 people have recovered from COVID-19 to date, including 36,446 in the last day, while the National Consumer Protection Agency (Rospotrebnadzor) said that more than 1.6 million people are under surveillance for possible infections.

On Friday, the director of the Vector Center for Virology and Biotechnology, Rinat Maksiutov, announced the sequencing of four independent strains of the Omicron variant in tests of tourists returning from abroad, Russian news agency Sputnik reported.

“Four independent whole-genome strains from different patients, different tourists who returned from other countries, have been sequenced at the Vector Centre,” he said, after authorities confirmed the first two cases of this variant in the country on Monday.

This week, the country detected its first two cases of omicron in travellers arriving from South Africa, but authorities are currently ruling out the need to impose new health restrictions.

Russian doctors said Omicron patients had been previously vaccinated and had mild symptoms.

The creators of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine have said they have already adapted the vaccine to the new variant, but there is no need to bring it to market for the time being.

According to the latest official data, 67,260,355 citizens have so far received the full vaccination schedule, while more than 74 million have been immunized with at least one dose.

(with information from EP and EFE)

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