Russia’s top doctor, who met with President Vladimir Putin a week ago, has tested positive for the coronavirus, state television reported on Tuesday.
AFP reports: “Last Tuesday Denis Protsenko met with the Russian leader who inspected the Kommunarka hospital while wearing a hazmat suit. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian agencies that Putin took regular tests and there was no reason to worry about his health.
The NYT reports that Putin has largely disappeared from view because he doesn’t like to deliver bad news to the Russian people: “By late Monday, at least 14 Russian regions and the country’s second biggest city, St Petersburg, had announced that they, too, were ordering residents to stay at home, indicating that the world’s largest nation, a vast territory covering 13 time zones, could soon be in lockdown. For weeks the Kremlin and its cheerleaders in the state news media have insisted that, unlike Italy, Spain and, more recently, the United States, Russia could tackle the virus without major disruption.”
