Growth in Moscow’s Covid-19 cases due to increased testing, not spread – deputy mayor
As Russia has its fourth straight day of over 10,000 new confirmed Covid-19 cases, things can seem pretty grim. However, new information from Moscow has shown that the spike might not be caused by increased spread – but testing.
As of Wednesday morning, the city of Moscow has seen a million coronavirus tests conducted since the beginning of the epidemic. That’s according to Anastasia Rakova, the deputy mayor of Moscow.
“We continue to actively increase the volume of testing for coronavirus infection,” she said. “To date, one million such studies have been completed by city, federal, and private laboratories. More than 40 thousand analyses are carried out daily in the city.”
The rapid increase in testing capacity has enabled the capital to find many more infected Muscovites, including those with very mild symptoms, and others completely asymptomatic. Because of this, the overall number of cases has increased, but hospitalizations in the capital have remained at the same level.
The combination of enhanced testing and stable hospitalizations has led to suspicions that the growth in numbers is not reflective of the increased spread of Covid-19, but rather, better detection.
“This trend suggests that Moscow is able to reduce the risk of spreading the infection and prevent severe consequences of the virus in patients,” Rakova explained.
Russia has tested far more extensively than other large countries, testing more people than Germany, Canada, and the US, per capita. Within Europe, the only countries to test more broadly than Russia are countries with less than 1/6 of the population, or those hit very early, like Italy and Spain.
As of May 6, Russia has 165,929 confirmed cases of Covid-19. With 86 deaths attributed to coronavirus in the last day, the overall number of victims is now at 1,537.
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