Kremlin strongly denies COVID-19 third wave in Russia

The Kremlin has denied information about the beginning of the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Russia, RIA Novosti reports on April 28.

According to Kremlin's official spokesman Dmitry Peskov, there is no "second accounting" in the statistics on the epidemic in Russia.

Earlier, the head of the department of the Research Institute of Epidemiology of Russia's consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, Vadim Pokrovsky, also denied the same information. According to him, Russia sees a gradual rise in the incidence. 

“To prevent it from growing into a wave, one needs to observe the anti-epidemic regime,” the expert emphasized.

Bloomberg, citing data from unofficial government statistics and informed sources, earlier reported that the third wave of coronavirus was beginning in Russia.

Over the past 24 hours, less than 8,000 new cases of coronavirus infection were detected in Russia for the first time since September - 7,848. The total number of positive cases since the beginning of the pandemic amounted to 4 787 273.

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Wednesday that Russia had left the worst part of the coronavirus pandemic behind.

• World Health Organization representative in Russia Melita Vujnovich explained a day earlier that Russia was having a "soft plateau" in the spread of COVID-19 or a "soft decline" in the incidence.
• At the same time, she warned that the danger of a sharp increase in the number of infected people remains and urged citizens to wear masks even if they were vaccinated.