Russia Reports First Coronavirus Cases

Russia reported its first two cases of coronavirus on Friday and said the infected people were Chinese citizens who had been quarantined.

The two cases were discovered in different parts of the country, one in Tyumen region in west Siberia, the other in Russia’s Far East, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said.

“They are under strict supervision, isolated and are receiving the necessary treatment. Both are Chinese citizens,” she told a news conference.

The two people are in a stable condition, Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, told the same briefing.

Golikova said all Russian airlines, with the exception of national airline Aeroflot, will stop flying to China from midnight on Friday. Four Chinese airlines will continue flying to Moscow, she added.

Russia has already closed its 4,300-kilometer (2,670 mile) land border with China to pedestrians and vehicles in an effort to protect its population. Russia said on Friday it would begin moving its citizens out of China via its Far Eastern region on Feb. 1

Golikova said Russia had no plans to limit freight traffic with China but would restrict Chinese citizens traveling to Russia from Mongolia, in addition to restrictions already announced.

She expressed confidence that the measures taken so far would prevent the virus spreading further in Russia, adding that everyone who had come into contact with the two patients had been examined and hospitalized where necessary.

However, Chinese authorities have struggled to control the spread of the disease despite draconian measures. The virus has killed 213 people to date, all in China, and prompted the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency.

Many countries, including the United States, have imposed travel curbs and businesses say they are facing supply problems because of the outbreak.

© 2020 The Moscow Times

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15 comments

  2. Is this virus much worse than we have been led to believe ?
    I have become very suspicious of the media and I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories but I am very disturbed by what I have been hearing. I have heard reports of China lieing about the actual numbers of infections and deaths , which does not surprise me .
    And now I discover this;
    Two US Air Force bases, in California and Texas, along with a Marine Corps air station in California and a training institute in Colorado, will be offered if needed, the department said.
    It added that the Department of Health
    and Human Services, which had requested military assistance, would be responsible for all care, transportation and security of evacuees.

    Reply

  3. My opinion , ( my wife says I’m crazy )

    Mother nature will always find a balance. Human beings have destroyed this balance. No major wars in 70 years , advances in medical technology ( antibiotics ) have created a situation of unsustainability.
    You cannot fight mother nature , she will find her balance .

    Reply

      • Possible but not likely.
        The last great pandemic was flu during WW 1 , long before the development of virus bioweapons. World War I claimed an estimated 16 million lives. The influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. One fifth of the world’s population was attacked by this deadly virus. Within months, it had killed more people than any other illness in recorded history

        Reply

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