At least two Russian legislators have contracted the dreaded Covid-19 disease. While mandatory coronavirus testing is not expected for MPs, many of them have already been checked voluntarily after their colleagues fell ill.
Top Russian officials had largely been spared by the coronavirus pandemic so far, but that situation changed on Saturday when two MPs were diagnosed with coronavirus.
Leonid Kalashnikov, head of the State Duma’s committee on the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Affairs, was the first to break the news. The legislator believes he has contracted the disease from his driver, who fell ill a week ago.
“I’m feeling rather ok so far. I’m hospitalized,” Kalashnikov told RIA Novosti, revealing that his coronavirus test came back negative and that computer tomography had been used to confirm the diagnosis.
Later in the day, another MP, Dmitry Novikov, revealed that he too had been hit by the coronavirus. The legislator has developed double viral pneumonia and is currently in hospital.
Despite the news, mandatory coronavirus testing is not expected to be introduced for MPs, revealed Anastasia Kashevarova, adviser to the Duma’s speaker. Still, many legislators have already been voluntarily tested, she told RIA Novosti.
Russia has more than 74,500 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 681 deaths. So far, some 6,250 people have recovered from Covid-19. Worldwide, the pandemic tally is approaching the 2.9 million mark, while almost 200,000 people have succumbed to the disease.
