Several Russian regions have opted to extend a one-week workplace shutdown that took effect nationwide on October 30 in response to a surge in COVID-19 cases and another daily record high number of deaths.
Authorities in the Kursk and Bryansk regions, which border Ukraine; the Chelyabinsk region near the Ural Mountains; Tomsk in Siberia; and the western region of Smolensk said on November 3 that their shutdowns would continue after November 8.
“The tense epidemiological situation forces us to extend the period of nonworking days by another week,” Tomsk Governor Sergei Zhvachkin said in a statement. “One nonworking week is not enough to stop the chain of infection.”
The Novgorod region already announced on November 1 that it was extending its shutdown by a week.
President Vladimir Putin gave regional authorities the option of extending the workplace shutdown.
Moscow authorities, meanwhile, said businesses there would reopen on November 8.
“The spread of the disease has stabilized in terms of its detection and its severe forms requiring hospitalization,” the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Mayor Sergei Sobyanin as saying.
Other measures, including a requirement that companies have at least 30 percent of their staff work from home, would remain in place, Sobyanin said.
The Moscow region, which includes the small cities and towns surrounding the city, and the neighboring Tula region also said they would not prolong the shutdown.
Russia’s daily COVID-19 death toll reached a record high on November 3 for the second day in a row. The government’s coronavirus task force reported 1,189 fatalities, surpassing the previous day’s record of 1,178 deaths. It was the third record number of fatalities in four days.
