Russian health agency says one in five Russians infected with coronavirus caught it through community spread

Twenty percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Russia occurred because somebody already in the country passed the novel coronavirus on to somebody else, said Dr. Anna Popova, who leads Russia’s Federal Service for Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor).

The figure accounts only for confirmed coronavirus cases, Popova told TASS.

She also provided statistics on the symptoms of confirmed patients. According to Rospotrebnadzor, 72 percent of those infected have clinical symptoms consistent with acute respiratory viral infections, 18 percent are asymptomatic, and 10 percent have been diagnosed with pneumonia.

According to Popova, Russia is not experiencing a spike in COVID-19 cases. “The epidemic situation in Russia has thus far developed at a relatively calm pace,” she argued.

Meanwhile, Dr. Nikolai Briko, the Health Ministry’s lead epidemiologist, predicted that the epidemic in Russia will decline in late April or early May.

As of March 27, there were 1,036 confirmed COVID-19 patients in Russia, with 703 of them located in Moscow. There are confirmed infections in 57 regions of the country, and journalists have reported a severe lack of comprehensive testing.