Abandoning the “big lockdown” (long-term quarantines at the national level) during the CORONAVIRUS pandemic in 2020 was the right decision, this was facilitated by the mobilization of Russian healthcare and assistance from business, said Andrei Belousov, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government. In an interview with RBC, he recalled that there was no big lockdown either in the spring of 2020 or in the fall during the first and second waves of covid-19 cases in RUSSIA.
Interview with Andrey Belousov RBC. Main Economy
“Even in the spring, we avoided a total shutdown of large enterprises. In general, large enterprises continued to operate. And here I must say a huge thank you to the business. I’ll be honest, I didn’t see and didn’t expect such cooperation,” Belousov said, explaining that business and regulators were working out schemes on how to introduce sanitary schemes at large enterprises and at the same time not stop work.
In the spring of 2020, economic activity in Russia was partially suspended as a result of administrative decisions aimed at containing the virus. President Vladimir Putinintroduced a regime of non-working days throughout the country from the end of March to May 11. However, continuous cycle enterprises, pharmacies, food retail, banks and a number of other categories were withdrawn from this regime. Enterprises that accounted for 10% of GDP were completely stopped in April, according to estimates in one of the versions of the government anti-crisis plan, while industries that generated 44% of GDP continued to work as usual; for the rest, the restrictions were partial. However, some regions, using the right to introduce independent restrictive measures, introduced more severe restrictions than the national average: for example, Moscow, where digital passes were introduced, without which it was impossible to take the metro or taxi.