On 1 June, the Chechen authorities allowed walking not far from home and playing sports in the street. The authorities also announced a decision to open dental offices and beauty and hairdresser salons.
“Today, the leader of Chechnya has signed a decree on the second stage of lifting the regime of restrictions,“ Chechen Prime Minister Muslim Khuchiev announced. “It includes several directions: opening of non-grocery outlets, a walk of no more than four persons within a radius of 500 m from home and opening of dental offices, hairdressers and beauty salons. However, all the above may be completed only in compliance with the requirements set up by the 'Rospotrebnadzor' (Russian Federal Agency for Consumer Supervision),” he said. Khuchiev also emphasized that the system of permits is still in force in the Russian federal republic.
In addition, the Chechen Muftiate lifted the ban on collective Friday namazes (prayers). However, to elderly people and parishioners with chronic diseases are still not allowed to visit mosques.
Following the deployment of Russian military troops in Dagestan to combat the spread of Covid-19 (Caucasus Watch reported), two mobile hospitals in central Dagestan’s Buynaksk and Botlikh districts were set up. New infectious hospitals for Covid-19 patients are also being built in Dagestan’s cities of Derbent, Khasavyurt and Kaspiysk.
However, the doctors in Dagestan warned that the actual number of infections is likely much higher. According to them many people with symptoms of Covid-19 are being misdiagnosed with community-acquired pneumonia. Another factor is the lack of tests for Covid-19 in the hospital and the absence of CT scanner machines for lung screening and the lack of statistics of people who died at home.
The Health Minister of Dagestan, Dzhamaludin Gadzhiibragimov said that if considered together, there have been nearly 14,000 registered cases of Covid-19 and community-acquired pneumonia.
The head of Dagestan Vladimir Vasiliyev said that in Dagestan this April, compared with the same month last year, the numbers of viral pneumonia grew by 33.6%. Vasiliyev noted that the authorities are not trying to hide the statistics of Covid-19 cases, but at the same time, “before the autopsy results, it is difficult to make a final diagnosis of whether [the patient had ] pneumonia or the coronavirus.”
The current tally of reported Covid-19 cases in Russia is 432 277. In Chechnya there were a total of 1278 cases reported and 14 deaths, while in Dagestan 5341 cases and 287 deaths.
