In Moscow, the highest number of deaths from Covid-19, Iceland removes all restrictions / Article

Iceland has become the first European country to lift all restrictions imposed by Covid-19. This is after 87% of the population aged 16 and over have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Moscow, on the other hand, has the highest number of deaths from Covid-19 to date.

In Iceland, the number of new cases no longer exceeds 10 per week. In a country with a population of around 370 thousand, six and a half thousand cases of illness and only 30 deaths were recorded during the pandemic, which is the second best figure in Europe after Finland per 100 thousand inhabitants. At the beginning of the pandemic, Iceland also ran the largest testing campaign in Europe, with more than twice the total population.

By contrast, the Russian capital, Moscow, has the highest number of Covid-19 victims to date, with 114 people killed in the last day. The total number of cases has exceeded 20 thousand per day, which is the highest rate since January. The severe situation is blamed for the spread of the coronavirus delta variant and the failure to take precautions.

In March, April and May, the number of Covid-19 cases across Russia ranged from eight to nine thousand per day. Now in just a few weeks, that number has more than doubled. In addition, mortality from Covid-19 sites, including in the capital, Moscow, has reached an all-time high. Gloomy statistics place Russia in the fourth place in the world in terms of the number of infected people per one hundred thousand inhabitants – there have been more expectations of the disease these days only in India, Brazil and Colombia.

Despite the difficult situation, large-scale mass events continue to take place in many parts of the country. The biggest of them took place over the weekend in St. Petersburg, with young people celebrating graduating from high school. Formally, visitors to the event are required to pass negative Covid-19 tests or a vaccination certificate, however, the event did not meet the requirements of social distancing and wearing masks.

Officials, meanwhile, continue to call for vaccinations. Mandatory vaccination has also been adopted in various sectors in some regions of Russia.

“A high level of testing is needed to identify and help those infected as soon as possible,” said Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. “But it’s better not to wait for a positive test result and get vaccinated. The pace of vaccination has accelerated. We now have stockpiles of vaccines and we need to work now to deliver them as easily as possible to people in all regions.”

Although Russia was the first in the world to approve the Covid-19 vaccine, less than 15% have received at least one dose of the vaccine in Russia, while, for example, one in two people in the United States and, on average, the European Union have been vaccinated.

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