Russian President Vladimir Putin has given the government two weeks to prepare for a new COVID-19 pandemic strike, TASS writes.

“We see what is happening in the world. This suggests that we have at least a couple of weeks to prepare,” the head of state specified. The New Year holidays could not but affect the level of coronavirus incidence, Putin noted.

“It is obvious that we are in a very difficult situation today, in a situation on the threshold of possible new outbreaks, especially since the holidays are big, communication between people was very intense at this time. This can’t but affect the epidemiological situation in the country,” said the President.

In turn, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said that the level of collective immunity is 63.4%, during the New Year vacations the indicator has decreased in 12 regions. She warned that the rise in morbidity is inevitable. At the same time, mortality in the first 10 days of January decreased by 24.5% compared to January 1-10, 2020.

Over the past day in Russia recorded 17,946 new cases of coronavirus infection. Thus, the number of sick people during the entire pandemic amounted to 10,702,150. Most new cases of COVID-19 were detected in Moscow (4,008), St. Petersburg (1,659) and the Moscow region (1,238).