Russia eases COVID-19 restrictions despite record cases – National

Russia will reduce some of it COVID-19 Restrictions from Sunday, the consumer health watchdog announced on Saturday, despite reporting a record number of daily cases as Omicron variant spread across the country.

The number of daily infections has increased since January. But the highly infectious variant of Omicron has not resulted in a significant increase in deaths, and the Kremlin recently dismissed concerns about the risk of new lockdowns.

According to the latest order from the consumer health watchdog, from Sunday, people will not need to self-isolate after coming into contact with people infected with COVID-19.

The capital’s coronavirus task force said in Moscow that schools and nurseries could end quarantine requirements for students from next week.

1:52
COVID-19 Several European countries break new daily case records

Earlier this week, Anna Popova, the head of the watchdog, said that some of the restrictions no longer make sense because the Omicron variant is spreading so quickly. Up to 20% of infected people in Russia and 40% of people in Moscow have no symptoms.

The order to lift the quarantine restrictions comes as the number of daily new cases in Russia increased to 177,282 cases on Saturday, from 168,201 a day earlier, and compared with 16,000 fewer cases per day that Russia reported a day. Last month, the government’s coronavirus task force said.

It also reported 714 deaths in the last 24 hours, down from the all-time high above 1,200 recorded in November. (Reported by Andrey Ostroukh and Gleb Stolyarov; Editing by Catherine Evans and Clelia Oziel )

View links »