Russia: Putin’s Spokesman ‘Peskov’ Test Positive For Coronavirus

President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, has confirmed he’s being treated for COVID-19, RIA Novosti reports.

The development makes Peskov the latest of a number of senior Russian political figures to contract Covid-19, raising concerns about its spread throughout the Kremlin.

News about Peskov’s condition and a spike in coronavirus cases comes one day after Putin led a high-profile discussion about how Russia might be able to begin emerging from a broad economic shutdown that began on March 30.

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For more than six weeks, the country was in a mandatory “non-work period” in which Putin decreed workers would still get their normal wages. But that ended on Monday.

“Critics say authorities are putting lives at risk by opening too soon. They also question numbers put forth by a government task force that insists Russia’s mortality rate from COVID-19 remains far lower than global averages — at under 1% with just over 2,000 lives lost,” Charles Maynes reports from Moscow for NPR’s Newscast unit.

At Monday’s meeting, Putin said he wants his Cabinet to look for ways to help operations resume in “backbone industries” such as construction, manufacturing, agriculture, communications and energy. But he added that every Russian region should make its own decisions on loosening restrictions based on advice from medical experts, conditions in their area and the ability to ensure sanitary and safe conditions as people get back to work.

“Jumping ahead too soon would be reckless and dangerous. At the same time, sitting idly and evading responsibility is not an option,” Putin said.

“It is a question of choosing between Scylla and Charybdis,” the president added, illustrating the tricky task of balancing the competing needs for economic activity and personal safety by evoking the fearsome monsters from Greek mythology that occupied opposite sides of the Strait of Messina.

“I ask you to take this as seriously as possible,” Putin told his ministers.