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Russian Schools Reopen As COVID-19 Cases Surge Past One Million

By Vusala Abbasova September 2, 2020

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Although Russia has the fourth-highest number of confirmed infections worldwide, the country's mortality rate is much lower than other countries. / Vyacheslav Prokofyev / TASS

Russia, the world's largest country, has surpassed one million cases of COVID-19, according to official government data. The surge in cases has placed the country fourth in the world for the largest number of infections, right behind the United States, Brazil and India. Despite the spike in cases, students throughout the country have returned to classrooms for the first day of the new school year.

On Wednesday, Russia reported another 4,952 infections, bringing the total number of reported cases to 1,005,000. The day before, some 4,729 cases were reported.

The deadly virus, which was first identified in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, in December, hit Russia in March, prompting the country's authorities to enforce strict measures in an effort to slow its spread. The coronavirus outbreak has reached all of Russia's regions, from the Kaliningrad exclave between Poland and Lithuania, to the remote Chukotka autonomous district. Although the rate of new daily cases is climbing, the Russian government has lifted most lockdown restrictions in the majority of the country’s regions as of Tuesday, saying that the country had passed peak infections.

Although Russia has the fourth-highest number of confirmed infections worldwide, the country's mortality rate is much lower than other countries. Nearly 17,300 people have died from the virus since the beginning of the country's outbreak, while more than 815,000 patients have, so far, recovered.

Meanwhile, Russia’s consumer protection watchdog Rospotrebnadzor believes that the current epidemiological situation makes it possible to reopen schools across the country. In this regard, authorities have developed a series of safety measures for the new school year, including strict time frames for the start of lessons and mandatory breaks, when classrooms and halls will be ventilated.

Additionally, pupils will have their temperature checked on arrival and adhere to social distancing practices marked by special markings placed at every entrance and on every floor. However, masks have not been made compulsory for teachers and students. However, all school staff in the capital have been tested for coronavirus and hand sanitizer has been made available throughout the building. Anna Popova, the head of the consumer watchdog, said that "no one can go to school if they are feeling even slightly unwell."

After cases of human-to-human transmissions were confirmed outside of China, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak an international public health emergency, but due to a sharp surge in cases, it was soon forced to make a new statement declaring the outbreak a pandemic.

The total number of confirmed cases globally has now surpassed 25.8 million with more than 858,000 COVID-19-related deaths, according to an interactive map from Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering. However, because the virus does not present symptoms in some people, the true number of cases is likely to be significantly higher.

On August 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the approval of "the world's first" COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow. The vaccine dubbed "Sputnik V" was greeted with skepticism from some western countries and scientists over its lack of transparent data and rushed approval.

Scientists worry that "Sputnik V" has only gone through first and second phase clinical trials, but there is no documentation that Phase 3 clinical trials — the final stage of testing required for a vaccine to be approved — have been completed. While Phase 1 and 2 trials test whether a vaccine provokes an immune response without triggering dangerous short-term side effects, only Phase 3 trials, which include thousands to tens of thousands of volunteers, can demonstrate whether a vaccine prevents COVID-19 infection or not.

Last week, officials announced that it began advanced trials of its already approved vaccine on 40,000 people in 45 medical centers across Russia for distribution in a clinical study before the immunization of the entire population, which is scheduled for November-December 2020.