The Delta variant, first discovered in India, has been detected in 89.3 percent of Moscow's COVID-19 patients as the Russian capital is seeing a surge in infections, the city's mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Friday.
To resist the Delta variant, people need to develop as twice antibodies as required before, which has caused the herd immunity level in Moscow to drop from 60 percent to just 25 percent, Sobyanin said.
Moscow reported a record of 9,056 new cases over the past 24 hours, taking the city's total to 1,269,145, the country's monitoring and response center said Friday.
Starting from Friday, Moscow hospitals provide medical care only to those vaccinated against the virus, excluding emergency treatment.
Russia confirmed 17,262 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, the highest level since Feb. 1, taking the nationwide tally to 5,281,309.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday attributed the new wave of infections in Russia to a low vaccination rate, the public's reluctance to observe restrictions, and the severity of the COVID-19 variant.
Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin is attentively monitoring the pandemic situation and remains in close contact with regional leaders of the country.
