MOSCOW – Russia has recorded 49,513 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, the greatest daily increase to date, bringing the total to 10,987,774 across the country, according to the official monitoring and response centre. The number of people killed in the United States increased by 692 to 324,752, while the number of people rescued increased by 24,719 to 9,975,052.
Meanwhile, Moscow, Russia's most severely affected region, reported a daily high of 15,987 new cases, bringing the overall number of cases to 2,140,914.
According to a Friday statement from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin did not address the idea of imposing a lockdown in the capital city during their meeting on Thursday.
According to the state news report, Peskov stated that the experience accumulated through earlier Covid-19 waves has helped rule out the likelihood of a lockdown for the time being. The spokesman expressed optimism that the country's Sputnik V vaccine will be approved by the World Health Organization in the near future, noting that the vaccination had been shown to be effective against the fast-spreading Omicron strain.
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