Russia has denied that a mysterious virus outbreak is sweeping the country, and the government has denied reports that ambulances are backed up at hospitals.
Long lines of ambulances have been photographed outside infectious disease hospitals across the country, despite Vladimir Putin’s officials stressing that this is normal. Footage posted on Sunday by the Russian-language Telegram channel Baza, which claims to be affiliated with the country’s security services, shows ambulances waiting to transport patients to hospitals.
It reported: “A queue of ambulances at Infectious Diseases Hospitals Number One and Number Two in Moscow. Most of the sick people have pneumonia.” According to Baza, approximately 30 ambulances gathered at the first hospital and more than 10 at the second. This comes after Russian media outlet MK.ru reported that an “incomprehensible virus began to spread across Russia.”
However, the Kremlin’s health department in Moscow has moved quickly to dispel rumors. It was stated in a statement: “The situation when several ambulances arrive for hospitalization in an infectious diseases hospital is standard. The growth in the incidence of ARVI and COVID-19 in Moscow has slowed down; the figures for the last week do not exceed the data of the previous period.”
“And COVID-19 incidence rates have been declining for two weeks. Over the next one to two weeks, the incidence rate is predicted to reach a plateau.”
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The department reports “no significant increase in hospitalizations in the city.” It also stated that the current “morbidity situation is normal and corresponds to the epidemic season,” according to Express.co.uk.
The statement continued: “Having up to 24 cars on-site at the same time is standard practice during peak hours and is not a queue or an emergency situation. The hospital regularly monitors the arrival of patients; the situation, when there were about 23 cars on the territory, was resolved within half an hour. In [hospital] Number Two, similarly…the presence of 10 cars on the territory is the absolute norm.”
Last week, Vladimir Putin’s own people turned on him during a bizarre press conference in which they were free to question their leader about anything. Members of the public used the briefing in Moscow to grill the 71-year-old world leader, asking several questions about whether the country was in touch with “reality.”