Russian authorities announced the first case of the new strain of coronavirus, which was reported to have spread in Britain last month.
Anna Popova, head of the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing, confirmed on Sunday that a Russian citizen who recently returned from the United Kingdom tested positive for the "British" strain of the coronavirus. The British government had previously tightened restrictions in London and large parts of England in December due to the detection of the new variant, which has a greater ability to spread. Since then, cases of the new variant have been reported in dozens of countries.
On another note, Russian health authorities announced on Sunday the lowest daily tally of coronavirus infections since November, reporting 22,851 cases in the past 24 hours, with 456 deaths. According to figures from the Russian Center for the Protection of Rights and the Clinical Research on the Outbreak released on Sunday, 24,080 individuals recovered in the past day, raising the total number of recoveries since the pandemic began to 2,778,889.
The total number of recorded infections in Russia has now reached 3,401,954, while total fatalities stand at 61,837. New cases were reported across 836 Russian regions, with the highest numbers in Moscow (4,216 cases) followed by St. Petersburg (3,010) and the Moscow region (1,292). Health authorities across Russia launched a vaccination campaign against the coronavirus last month.
