Russia has finished vaccinating the population at risk and started with the rest of the inhabitants

Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has been questioned by scientists around the world, arguing that it has not passed the same tests and checks as vaccines developed by other pharmaceutical companies.

Vaccination began in December, prioritizing health workers, teachers and social workers, as well as people with chronic illnesses. Since then, more than 1.6 million doses have been delivered to the civilian population and a further supply of more than 2 million doses is expected this month.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced last Wednesday the start of vaccination of the general population and asked to prepare the necessary infrastructure. “We can see that there is a slight decrease (in infections). This should not reassure us,” he said.

In addition, Putin stressed that the Russian industry “has not only met all the standards and all the promised volumes, but also exceeded the planned volume of vaccine production.”

In addition to the Sputnik V vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, Russia has a second vaccine called EpiVacCorona and the result of the work of the Russian State Center for Research in virology and biotechnology Véktor and a third, ChuVac, developed by the Chumakov Center.

In the meantime, health authorities confirmed on Monday the death of more than 470 people from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, with which the figure exceeds the threshold of 66,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to data provided by the center . operational for the fight against the coronavirus.

The agency said that in the past 24 hours, 471 deaths have been confirmed from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, which puts the total at 66,037, with 3,591,066 cases, of which 22,857 are in the last day.

The country’s capital, Moscow, remains the worst affected, with 3,679 cases and 73 deaths in the past day, while in St. Petersburg, 3,287 infections and 55 deaths have been confirmed during this period, according to the Russian news agency Sputnik.

In contrast, 18,333 people were released on the last day, bringing the figure to 2,978,764, while 617,328 people are under observation. Likewise, the National Office for Consumer Protection (Rospotrebnadzor) has estimated the number of tests carried out since the start of the pandemic at more than 97 million.