Russia Rolled Out COVID-19 Response Before First Cases Emerged - Deputy Prime Minister

Russia Rolled Out COVID-19 Response Before First Cases Emerged - Deputy Prime Minister

Russia started taking COVID-19 response measures well before the first cases were detected on its soil, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said on Wednesday, following Western media claims that the government overlooked the domestic infection risk for too long

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th May, 2020) Russia started taking COVID-19 response measures well before the first cases were detected on its soil, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said on Wednesday, following Western media claims that the government overlooked the domestic infection risk for too long.

On Tuesday, Politico and Bloomberg published articles accusing Russia of being complacent about the epidemic. Both outlets assert that the government underestimated the "obvious problem of escalating cases" on its soil "for too long," thinking that the prompt closure of border with China in January, passenger screening and refitting of hospitals would keep the virus off, and they had "nothing to worry about." According to Politico, the Russian strategy apparently went wrong, as the country already ranks second in terms of COVID-19 cases, and "those are just the official statistics."

"Much time has passed since December 31, 2019, when Russia was first informed about the novel coronavirus infection in the People's Republic of China. I would like to say that in the first days of these developments, we organized appropriate epidemiological monitoring. Therefore, measures had been taken in our country even before the first cases of the disease appeared," Golikova told the upper house of the Russian parliament.

On January 27, the government set up a crisis response center to avert the import and spread of the infection in Russia, the deputy prime minister recalled. The first two coronavirus cases in the country were registered only on January 31.

The same day, the government endorsed a national plan to counter the coronavirus, outlining concrete response measures. COVID-19 was added to a list of diseases posing a public threat.

Later, the country set up two more bodies to coordinate the response chaired by the prime minister. In addition, a relevant working group, led by the Moscow mayor, was created within the State Council. Relevant task forces were set up in Russian regions, Golikova went on.

To minimize the spread of the coronavirus from abroad, Russia boosted sanitary and quarantine control at border checkpoints, ordered immediate isolation of persons with suspected COVID-19 and rolled out relevant diagnostics. All this made it possible to delay the spread of the coronavirus in the country by almost two months, according to the deputy prime minister.

As of Wednesday, Russia's COVID-19 tally topped 300,000, with 8,764 cases confirmed in the past 24 hours. The death toll has risen by a record 135 to 2,972. At the same, the daily recoveries (9,262) for the first time surpassed the increase in cases. Since the onset of the pandemic, the country has conducted over 7.5 million tests.