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Moscow, Jan. 19 (BNA): Russian authorities are shortening the required isolation period for people infected with COVID-19 from 14 to seven days as the country faces another wave of COVID-19 cases, this time driven by the highly contagious omicron variant. .
Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova, who runs the country’s coronavirus task force, said on Tuesday that health officials are “improving our approach to quarantine and testing of our citizens, including shortening the quarantine period to seven days.”
Golikova added that other policy changes will be adopted in the coming days, without going into details. It also did not explain the reasons for cutting the isolation period. The Associated Press (AP) reported that previous rules required a two-week isolation period for those who tested positive, with a mandatory follow-up test on Day 11.
Russia already has the worst death toll in Europe due to the epidemic, with the number of deaths exceeding 322,000 according to its official statistics, a figure that those other statistics indicate is much lower than the number.
The daily number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia has doubled over the past week, from more than 15,000 cases on January 10 to 31,252 on Tuesday. Officials say the increase could become the largest in the country yet, but so far no major restrictions have been announced to halt it.
Anna Popova, head of Russia’s public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said last week that daily new cases could reach six figures. President Vladimir Putin said Russia has “two weeks” to prepare for the unprecedented wave.
Golikova said on Tuesday that 1,682 omicron cases have been officially confirmed in Russia so far, but the actual number is much higher. She said the new format is already prevailing in Moscow, the outlying region, and St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city.
Rospotrebnadzor said a total of 1,241 omicron cases had been registered in Moscow as of Tuesday.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin indicated on Tuesday that the recent increase in the number of infections had not yet led to an increase in hospitalizations.
“So far we’re not seeing the same proportion of severe cases as in Delta,” Mishustin said, adding, “We need to be prepared for any course of events.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that authorities were not discussing another nationwide lockdown.
There was only one national lockdown in Russia, in 2020, although many Russians were ordered to stay off work for a week in October 2021 amid a jump in reported cases and deaths. On Friday, the government decided to indefinitely delay imposing restrictions on non-vaccinated people, which would have been very unpopular among Russians reluctant to receive vaccinations.
About half of Russia’s 146 million people have been fully vaccinated, despite Russia boasting that it was the first country in the world to adopt and launch a domestically developed coronavirus vaccine.
In Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin extended his orders to require companies to keep at least 30% of employees working from home and people over 60 to stay at home until April 1, but said at this point there was no need for any additional restrictions.
On Tuesday, the Russian capital recorded 8,342 new infections, more than double the number just one week ago.
The Russian coronavirus task force has recorded more than 10.8 million confirmed infections and 322,678 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. Russia’s state statistics agency, which uses broader counting criteria, puts the death toll much higher, saying the total number of virus-related deaths between April 2020 and October 2021 was more than 625,000.
MI