Putin orders mass COVID vaccination programme from next week

Russian President Vladmir Putin has ordered the country’s authorities to begin mass voluntary vaccination against COVID-19 from next week onwards.

The move, announced on Wednesday, came after Russia said on October that its domestically produced Sputnik V vaccine was 92 percent effective at preventing coronavirus.

Teachers and medics will be the first to receive shots. President Putin said that the country will produce two million doses of the vaccine within the next few days.

“Let’s agree on this – you will not report to me next week, but you will start mass vaccination … let’s get to work already,” he told Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova.

The Kremlin earlier gave assurances that Russians were first in line to be vaccinated, with Moscow also discussing supply deals with other countries.

With 2,347,401 confirmed infections as of Wednesday, Russia has the fourth-largest number of COVID-19 cases in the world behind the United States, India and Brazil.

It has recorded 41,053 deaths related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

On December 2 authorities recorded 589 new daily deaths tied to the virus and 25,345 new infections.

The country’s overall rise in cases has slowed after witnessing a high on November 27. Instead of imposing mass lockdown during the second wave of infections, the officials opted for targeted regional curbs.

Museums, theatres and concert halls would be closed to the public in St Petersburg of over 5million people for the duration of Russia’s New Year holidays from December 30 to January 10.

Putin statement comes hours after the United Kingdom approved the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for use that will be rolled out from early next week.

Sputnik V- named after the Soviet-era satellite is in third and final stage of clinical trials involving around 40,000 volunteers.