Russia Reports Record New Cases For 4th Day As COVID-19 Tears Through Moscow: Live Updates

Every day, it seems, Russia sets a new record for the largest number of new COVID-19 cases confirmed in a day. Yesterday, Health officials in Moscow announced more than 9k new cases. On Sunday, they announced more than 10k new cases, another record sum. In the span of just two weeks, Russia has gone from having a relatively inconsequential number of positive cases to housing one of the largest outbreaks in the world. Of course, the infections didn’t just happen overnight. It’s merely the latest evidence that by the time Russia closed its Far Eastern border back in January the seeds of domestic transmission may have already been planted.

That would jive with evidence that the first COVID-19 death in the US might have occurred as early as Feb. 6, meaning parts of New York, California and Washington were probably already suffering from local human-to-human transmission.

Russia added 10,633 cases of Covid-19, the highest daily number for the nation so far, increasing for a fifth day in a row. The total number of cases has risen to 134,687, according to the government’s virus response center. Around a half of the new cases are asymptomatic and Moscow accounts for nearly 56% of new infections. Russia’s total Covid-19 fatalities rose to 1,280.

As the Guardian reported, Moscow’s mayor warned on Saturday that up to 2% of Moscow’s population may be infected, as hospitals in the Russian capital were overwhelmed and another top government tested positive. If Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s projection is correct, that would mean more than 240,000 Muscovites have already been infected, 4x the official number.

Russia confirmed 10,633 new coronavirus infections Sunday, bringing its countrywide total to 134,687and marking a new one-day record increase. Russia is now the seventh most-affected country in terms of infections, having surpassed China, Turkey and Iran last week. Roughly 1,280 deaths have been confirmed countrywide. More than half of the confirmed cases are in Moscow or the surrounding area. Sunday’s increase was Russia’s fourth record-day jump in a row.

After announcing that Russian PM Mikhail Mishustin, on Friday authorities announced the housing minister was the latest top official to test positive. Vladimir Putin has not been pictured in public for nearly a month and is working from his residence outside Moscow.

Hospitals in the capital are already at capacity, with television footage showing ambulances forced to wait for hours to deliver the infected.

Across the world, the number of ‘confirmed’ coronavirus cases has climbed to 3.5 million, with hundreds of thousands – potentially even millions – of cases likely uncounted. The number of deaths, meanwhile, is slowly approaching 250,000 (it stood at 244,239 as of Sunday morning). During it annual meeting, the IMF said it had set aside $1 trillion of lending capacity to help emerging-market member states particularly hard hit by the pandemic and some of the ramifications for global financial conditions (negative prices on oil futures, the rapidly strengthening greenback, etc.). 189 countries are members of the IMF, and so far, mostly South American states like Ecuador have asked for large bailouts.

But on Sunday, the FT reported that Zimbabwe had asked for a loan to help clear billions of dollars in debt and avoid an economic collapse. The FT cited a letter from Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube to the IMF.

Zimbabwe is about $2 billion behind on payments to lenders, including the World Bank and African Development Bank, and has been excluded from emergency loans from international institutions, the newspaper said.

Following reports that it planned to roll back some lockdown measures, Singapore said Sunday that companies with employees who can work from home will probably be asked to continue doing so even after the country’s partial lockdown ends on June 1, while sectors like manufacturing should prepare for a gradual reopening in the coming weeks, Singapore’s Trade and Industry Minister said.

After successfully blocking the president’s businesses from receiving any government assistance, political opponents of President Trump

Texas hotelier Monty Bennett, a major donor to President Donald Trump whose companies are among the biggest known recipients of rescue loans for small businesses hurt by the pandemic, said he will return the money.

Roche Holding AG said it received emergency-use authorization from the FDA for its Elecsys coronavirus antibody test. The test, designed to determine if a patient has developed antibodies against the virus, has a specificity greater than 99.8%.

There were 164 new fatalities, bringing total deaths to 25,264, according to Health Ministry data. That compared with 276 daily fatalities reported Saturday. Total infections rose by 838 to 217,466, down from the previous increase of 1,147. The figures include adjustment on how previous new cases were counted in certain regions, the ministry said.

During a Sunday morning interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper – building on Fed Chairman Jay Powell’s exhortation for the federal government to push through more stimulus – on its “State of the Union” program, Larry Kudlow was pressed to explain why Congress doesn’t just plow ahead with more stimulus.

“Waiting any further – does it make any sense?…There’s a real need, we need more money in that program,” Tapper said. The confrontational interview followed a CNN report claiming the second round of the ‘PPP’ had delivered 2.2 million small business loans worth an aggregate $175 billion.