President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday held a meeting with officials on measures to fight the spread of the coronavirus in Russia. Moscow has been affected the most, he noted. The city has “some 500 coronavirus cases,” Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said, adding that “some of them have not been confirmed yet.”

“Aware of the dynamic,” the authorities have started taking additional measures, increasing hospital capacities and testing. Nine labs were opened, which tested 3,000 people and “will do another 13,000 tests by the end of the week,” according to Sobyanin. “We are testing all the samples we receive, using also Chinese and Korean test kits,” he said.

Labs of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor) are also being used. The most effective tests will be chosen and then it will be decided “which tests should be manufactured for the purpose of health screening,” the mayor said. He believes that “there is no real picture of the COVID-2019 situation in Russian regions,” TASS reported.

After the meeting, Putin visited the construction site of a future hospital in Moscow’s community of Kommunarka.

Source: RT