The restrictions introduced due to the coronavirus pandemic and the high level of vaccination of the population explain the sharp drop in the number of cases of influenza infection in Russia in the fall of 2020. This was announced on January 23 by Mikhail Lebedev, an expert at the Center for Molecular Diagnostics of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor.
“In my opinion, this is largely due to those quarantine measures (masks, social distance, washing hands, limiting contacts) that are in effect around the world to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection. They also prevent the spread of influenza. It should also be remembered that this year 76 million people (60% of the Russian population) were vaccinated against influenza in our country. And in some regions, up to 70% of the population received the vaccine, ”Arguments and Facts quoted him as saying.
Lebedev believes the spread of the coronavirus has had no effect on the flu. So, at the beginning of the pandemic in China, the flu season was in full swing and many then were sick with two diseases at the same time. At the same time, at the moment, the situation with influenza in Russia and Europe is “unusually good”.
He added that experts expected that an epidemic of genetic varieties of previously circulating flu mutations instead of new strains would come to Russia, Gazeta reports. RU”.
Earlier, on January 15, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, announced the absence of influenza in Russia. Popova noted that it was already the middle of January and there was no year without this disease.