Russia’s hospitals were being overwhelmed by “a huge influx” of coronavirus patients as the country ended its second week of a Kremlin-mandate lockdown Saturday, a government official said.
Ambulances lined up at hospitals in a Moscow suburb Saturday; one driver told Reuters he had waited for more than 15 hours to drop off a patient who was suspected of having the infection.
Russia has reported 13,584 COVID-19 cases and 106 deaths.
“The situation in both Moscow and St. Petersburg, but mostly in Moscow, is quite tense because the number of sick people is growing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview last week on Russian state TV. “There is a huge influx of patients. We are seeing hospitals in Moscow working extremely intensely, in heroic, emergency mode.”
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said last week that the city would introduce digital permits to enforce the lockdown across the city. Residents would have to request permits to travel on public transit, and by taxi and by car, Reuters reported.
