Video filmed from apartment show's country's scary coronavirus problem

A video filmed from an apartment in Moscow shows how Russia is struggling to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

The video, uploaded to Twitter, shows more than 30 ambulances stationary in traffic queues trying to enter a hospital.

One ambulance driver said he had been waiting 15 hours outside the hospital to drop off a patient suspected of having the deadly infection.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the situation in Moscow and St Petersburg is "quite tense" because the number of sick people is growing.

"There is a huge influx of patients. We are seeing hospitals in Moscow working extremely intensely, in heroic, emergency modem" he said.

Ambulances are pictured stationary, crowding a block, in Moscow.
Ambulances are pictured stationary, crowding a block, in Moscow.

Russia currently has 13,548 confirmed cases and 106 deaths, 12 of which came on Saturday, local time.

Mr Peskov said that it would become clearer only in the next few weeks whether the country was nearing the worst point in its outbreak.

Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, said on Friday that the city was far from reaching the peak of the outbreak, saying it was merely in the "foothills".

On Saturday he said Moscow would introduce digital permits next week to control movement around the city to help enforce the lockdown.

Mr Sobyanin said residents will have to request the permits, which will contain a code that identifies the holder, in order to travel using motorcycles, scooters, cars, taxi services or the city's vast public transport network.

He added that residents should be ready to present identification documents and their digital permit to law enforcement officers patrolling the city.

A communal worker sprays disinfectant on the door of a residential building in Moscow.
A communal worker sprays disinfectant on the door of a residential building in Moscow.

"Unfortunately this is a necessity," Mr Sobyanin wrote on his website.

"It is needed to protect the lives and health of many Muscovites, to overcome this calamity and to return to normal life."

A stronger police presence was visible on the streets of Moscow. Traffic police have set up check points on major thoroughfares on the outskirts of the city but were not systematically carrying out checks.

In the early stages of the epidemic, Russia recorded fewer cases of the novel coronavirus than many Western European countries, but its tally began to rise sharply this month.

Until late March officials were saying the situation was under control and that there was no epidemic in the country.

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