Coronavirus latest: Russia reports surge in past week as vaccine expert forecasts pandemic’s end

Investing

A health worker draws a dose of the Russian-made Gam-Covid-Vac vaccine, also known as Sputnik V, during a trial at the No 2 City Clinic in Moscow

Russia’s tally of coronavirus cases has risen as much in the past seven days as in all of September, state media calculated on Sunday.

There were 179,987 cases detected between November 22 and November 28, while 180,967 coronavirus cases were recorded in September, the Tass news agency reported.

Russia announced 26,683 new cases on Sunday, just shy of Saturday’s total of 27,100 new cases.

Of the Sunday cases, 7,967 were recorded in Moscow and its surrounding region, while 3,701 occurred in St Petersburg.

Separately, the head of one of Russia’s largest state vaccine makers told Tass he expected the pandemic to end in the first half of next year.

“The virus will not go away but the pandemic, of course, will come to an end,” Rinat Maksyutov, director-general of the Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology, a vaccine developer, told an online science event.

He said he expected the next Science Bar Hopping event, scheduled for July 2021, would be held offline.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *