The World Health Organization offered a glimmer of hope to Russia’s escalating efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic by saying the spread of the deadly pathogen in the country may be reaching its peak.
Although Russia has been recording more than 10,000 new confirmed cases a day for over a week and the total exceeded 200,000 on Sunday, the growth in infections slowed below the key level of 7 percent on May 6. It has steadily decreased to 5.5 percent since then.
"The cases are still there but the growth rate is stabilizing,” Melita Vujnovic, the head of the United Nations health agency’s office in Russia, said in a phone interview. "We do hope, looking at the last few days, that it is on a plateau.”