Russia sees its largest rise in new coronavirus case yet with 1,786 new infections bringing the total to 11,917
- Deaths also rose by 18 to 94, according to Moscow’s crisis response centre
- Doctors are treating all pneumonia patients for Covid-19 without waiting for test
- Russia has reported relatively low outbreak but this has been roundly questioned
Russia’s coronavirus infections today jumped by 1,786 to 11,917, marking the biggest daily rise in the country’s accelerating outbreak.
The number of deaths also rose by 18 to 94, according to Moscow’s crisis response centre.
Compared with neighbouring countries such as China, where the virus spawned late last year, both the infection and fatality tallies have been kept low.
But international observers have cast scepticism on this figure amid suggestions of a Kremlin cover-up.
Russia has also ordered 18 new hospitals be rapidly constructed to cope with a spike in coronavirus patients.
Doctors have been instructed to treat all pneumonia patients for the virus without waiting for test results.
Health minister Mikhail Murashko said: ‘We’re seeing that the disease progresses fast, and it has specific clinical presentation, allowing to diagnose it without confirming in the lab based on the clinical presentation.’
Sanitary workers in face masks clean up and disinfect steps outside a Moscow shopping centre. Infections today jumped by 1,786 to 11,917, marking the biggest daily rise in the country’s accelerating outbreak
Guards at the construction site of a new 160-bed hospital for coronavirus patients in Novosibirsk
Russia has claimed to have conducted over one million tests after moving swiftly to insulate themselves from the virus early in the pandemic.
When the ballooning infection rate in Wuhan emerged in January, the Kremlin quickly closed its land border and the following month barred all Chinese nationals from entering.
It has since enforced sweeping lockdown restrictions such as shutting schools and ordering citizens to remain indoors.
President Vladimir Putin has rammed through emergency legislation which punishes those flouting isolation rules with up to seven years in prison.
Spreading false information about coronavirus also carries up to a five-year sentence behind bars, local media report.
But the Kremlin has been accused of suppressing a much higher infection tally than the health ministry is reporting.
Pictured: A view of the £92million Moscow hospital complex from above. Over 50 per cent of the beds at the new facility will be designated intensive care units
In a signal that the Kremlin is expecting a hike in cases, the country’s defence ministry is building 18 coronavirus hospitals.
An army of 10,000 construction labourers have been working round the clock in recent days to build the £92million clinic in Moscow, the largest new hospital in the nation.
Almost half the beds in the new clinic in the capital, which has suffered the brunt of Russia’s epidemic, will be in intensive care units.
Other facilities under construction in Odintsovo, Podolsk, Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Orenburg, Ulan-Ude, and Ussuriysk are due for completion by the end of April.