Virologist warned of the risk of new strains of COVID-19 in Russia

In RUSSIA, after the end of non-working days, new strains of CORONAVIRUS may appear. This was stated by professor, virologist of the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology named after N.F. Gamalei Alexander Butenko in an interview with Sputnik radio.

According to him, Russians who have gone abroad for non-working days risk bringing new strains of covid-19 into the country when they return . “It is especially important that these could be the imports of new genetic variants of the coronavirus to Russia. Then specialists will have to rack their brains over them. These options may require new prevention and treatment measures,” Butenko said.

At the same time, the virologist noted that after non-working days, there will still be a decrease in the incidence of coronavirus, however, in his opinion, it could be even greater. “The effect of non-working days would be more noticeable if it were not for the completely stupid desire of some people to travel now to Turkey, Egypt and other countries,” he added.

On November 1, Vasily Akimkin, DIRECTOR of the Central Research Institute for Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor, announced the emergence of two new strains of COVID-19. He clarified that three cases of infection with the South American strain of the mu coronavirus and one case of the disease with the lambda strain were identified. The mu strain was identified in January 2021 in Colombia, and lambda was first registered in Peru in December last year.