On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin supported the head of the public health monitoring service’s proposal to set a non-working period in early May to prevent an outbreak of the new coronavirus.
Putin said he was ready to sign an order if Anna Popova, head of the Rospotrebnadzor, considered it necessary.
Popova said that the non-working period from May 1 to May 11 will be one of the steps in efforts to limit the time people spend on public transport, thus reducing the chances of becoming infected with the virus.
In Russia, many people go on vacation in early May, and May 1 and May 9 are public holidays.
Popova’s proposal is expected to be welcomed.
In Russia, most of the restrictions imposed in the fight against the pandemic have been lifted, and life in Moscow has largely returned to normal at the beginning of the year.
Instead of new restrictions, Moscow has relied on the Covid-19 vaccine “Sputnik V” developed in Russia to fight the new wave of the virus.
Russia’s statistical agency Rosstat has registered more than 224,000 virus-related deaths, far more than the 107,501 victims of Covid-19 reported by officials by Friday.
Rosstat data show that Russia has the highest number of Covid-19 victims in the world after the United States and Brazil.
In his annual address on the situation in the country this week, Putin praised three Russian-developed vaccines against the new coronavirus, pointing to them as a key element in efforts to achieve crowd immunity by the fall.
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