Vladimir Putin ordered to start the mass vaccination against coronavirus from January 18

Vladimir Putin also assessed the epidemiological situation in Russia and throughout the world. In his opinion, it has not yet been possible to defeat the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and its consequences: “We see that in the world as a whole, unfortunately, it is still not possible to strangle this disease, it is not possible to prevent all the negative consequences associated with it But first of all, of course, we should be interested in the situation in Russia. We see that there is some decline, but this should not calm us down", - he said.

"We are ready from Monday next week, January 18, to fulfill your order to switch over from large-scale vaccination to a wider vaccination of the population in January-February, and so on", - said Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, the president meeting with government members, - reports agency Interfax.

Vladimir Putin said that the plan for the release of Russian vaccines against coronavirus has already been exceeded, but also asked the government to report on the measures being taken in Russia to stop new strains of COVID-19. The greatest danger here is the so-called "British" strain, which is called 70% more infectious, although not more dangerous in terms of consequences. The first case of infection with such a strain has already been identified in Russia during the New Year holidays, the Kommersant newspaper notes.

An additional 600 thousand doses of coronavirus vaccines will be delivered to the regions of Russia until January 14. However, this is still not enough - the population of Russia is 144.5 million people. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the country has identified more than 3.4 million cases of COVID-19 infection and more than 63 thousand deaths. Over the past day, as of January 13, a record number of deaths (566 people) were recorded, and during this time almost 23 thousand new infected were identified.