President Putin's spokesperson tests positive for coronavirus, days after a whitehouse official tested positive.
On Tuesday, Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced news that he had tested positive for coronavirus. He becomes the fifth senior Russian official to test positive for the virus.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says he is hospitalized with the coronavirus.
Peskov, a key aide of Russian President Putin, told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday, “Yes, I’ve gotten sick. I’m being treated.”
Also infected was Peskov’s wife, Olympic ice dancing champion Tatyana Navka. She told reporters that Peskov’s condition was “satisfactory” and that the couple decided to enter the hospital so as not to expose the rest of their family.
“He brought it (the virus) from work,” Navka was quoted as saying by the Daily Storm online outlet.
Peskov, 52, has been Putin’s spokesman since 2008, but started working him with in the early 2000s.
According to Peskov, he last met Putin face-to-face more than 1 month ago.
Putin, who has been working remotely from his residence outside Moscow and holding many meetings via video conference, held a face-to-face meeting earlier on Tuesday with Igor Sechin, the head of oil giant Rosneft (ROSN.MM).
The Kremlin says Putin’s health is rigorously protected.
In a surprise announcement on Monday, Putin said it was time after six weeks to gradually lift nationwide restrictions that had forced many people to work from home and businesses to temporarily close.
Although Putin gave broad leeway to Russia’s regions to ease or tighten restrictions as they saw fit, he said it made sense for certain sectors of the bruised economy, such as construction and heavy industry, to be allowed to restart work from Tuesday.
Russia has reported more than 232,000 cases of COVID-19, which is the second highest after the United States
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With 232,243 confirmed cases, Russia now has the third highest number in the world after the United States and Spain,, but with 2,116 deaths one of the lowest mortality rates.
Russian officials believe the high number of cases and low mortality rate are due to extensive testing; they claim to have carried out more than 5.8 million tests to date.
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