St. Petersburg outlet reports that city officials may introduce a mandatory transit permit system like Moscow’s
St. Petersburg’s city government may introduce a permit system for moving around the city outdoors, anonymous sources told the local outlet Fontanka.
The outlet indicated that a mandatory permit system may be introduced as soon as Monday, April 20 if the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city continues to rise. That information came from a source within St. Petersburg’s COVID-19 task force, Fontanka said.
The permit system, if introduced, would reportedly apply primarily to metro, car, and taxi passengers; buses and trams would be unaffected.
The transport passes would be issued through St. Petersburg’s mobile app for state services, according to Fontanka, which also noted that the app requires access to users’ cameras and location data.
How this has worked in Moscow so far
- Lines crowded Moscow subway entrances early Wednesday due to COVID-19 travel permit checks
- After issuing 3.2 million ‘digital passes’ for travel under lockdown, Moscow revokes 900,000 of those permits
- There are three ways to get electronic passes for traveling around Moscow under quarantine. All three of them have severe glitches.
A number of Russian regions have already introduced permit systems for certain kinds of movement.
St. Petersburg’s official COVID-19 case count increased by 64 percent overnight to reach 1,083 by the morning of April 17.