The Moscow metro has begun random checks of passengers’ temperatures at station entrances to check for the coronavirus, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Monday as he announced a slew of measures to prevent its spread.
Russia has reported a total of six coronavirus cases, among them two Chinese citizens who have since recovered. The latest patient, who recently returned to Moscow from northern Italy, is the first Russian national to test positive for coronavirus while in the country.
Health officials are also conducting body temperature checks among international flight passengers across all of Moscow’s airports, as well as kindergarteners and schoolchildren, Sobyanin said.
He urged employers to carry out similar body-temperature checks at workplaces.
Separately, Moscow City Hall announced Tuesday that everyone arriving from coronavirus hubs who shows symptoms of the illness will be placed in a newly built hospital in southwestern Moscow. Authorities say the hospital can accommodate patients in individual rooms unlike other medical facilities where several patients have been placed in the same room.
Sobyanin’s earlier statement said that officials are issuing isolation orders to everyone arriving from China, Iran and South Korea, as well as isolation “recommendations” to those arriving from Italy and other countries with coronavirus cases.
The mayor said authorities are continuing daily raids in locations where Chinese citizens are either known to live or visit, a practice that China’s Embassy in Moscow has criticized as discriminatory.
Authorities have carried out more than 12,000 coronavirus inspections since Feb. 15, Sobyanin said, with more than 5,500 people still under observation.
