Putin announces he goes on quarantine as number of COVID-19 cases in the Kremlin surges

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he had to switch to self-isolation due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases among the people in his entourage, the Kremlin reports.

Due to the need to go into self-isolation, Putin will take part in CSTO (Collective Security treaty Organization) and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) summits via videoconference. The summits are to take place this week. 

Earlier, on September 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a conversation with Paralympian athletes in the Kremlin, said that a large number of people around him had contracted the coronavirus infection.

“Even in my environment, problems arise with this COVID. We need to figure out what is really going on there. Probably, I will soon have to quarantine myself. There are many people who are sick,” Putin said during the conversation with the athletes.

In turn, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the president was working as usual. 

"Yes. People get sick sometimes. The President is working actively,” said Peskov, commenting on the words from the Russian president. 

Peskov also said that Putin took a test for COVID-19 which showed that the president was healthy.

It is worthy of note that Putin had a meeting with his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Assad, on September 13 in Moscow. Assad paid an unexpected visit to Moscow due to the sharp aggravation of the situation in Syria's Idlib province.