Moscow threatens jail terms of 5 yrs
Moscow city authorities yesterday threatened prison terms of up to five years for people failing to self-isolate in their homes for two weeks after visiting countries hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak.
The city government had announced a "high alert regime" and imposed extra measures on Thursday to prevent a spread of the illness in the Russian capital.
Those who return from China, South Korea, Iran, France, Germany, Italy and Spain and other states showing possible "unfavourable" signs of coronavirus should self-isolate themselves at home for 14 days, Moscow city hall has said.
The Moscow healthcare department said yesterday that those disregarding the regulation risked severe punishment including imprisonment of up to five years, reports Reuters.
There have been 15 cases of coronavirus infections reported in Russia so far. Russia has closed its borders to foreign travellers from Iran. The country similarly closed crossings along its border with China last month as the virus spread there.
Compared to other countries fighting the spread of the virus – particularly China, South Korea and Italy – the Russian government has been relatively quiet about the spread of the virus within its borders and its plans to tame the epidemic. Putin on Thursday blasted what he considered false rumors that the coronavirus is running rampant across Russia in an attempt "to spread panic among the public."
Russia as of Friday afternoon reportedly had four confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to an online tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering. But the country has reportedly quarantined hundreds of people, employing raids and facial recognition software to find cases of potential infection.
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