Russia: Employees who refuse to be vaccinated may be placed on unpaid leave

Russian Labor Minister has announced that employees who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine in Russian regions may be placed on unpaid leave.

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“If health officials in a region make vaccination compulsory for certain types of workers, an unannounced employee may be suspended,” Anton Kotyakov told the Russian media on Saturday, commenting on the state telegram channel monitoring the situation on Sunday.

He noted that the suspension would last for the period of validity of the compulsory vaccination order.

Faced with an increase in cases, the city of Moscow and its region made vaccination mandatory for service sector workers for the first time in Russia this week.

Since then, Russian media have reported that seven local companies, including St. Petersburg and its territory, have taken similar steps.

After two consecutive days of recorded epidemics, Moscow recorded a slight fall on Sunday, with 8,305 cases reported in 24 hours. Two weeks before this, 3,000 cases were registered daily.

According to officials, the eruption is due to the delta variation that has emerged in India, which, according to Mayor Sergei Sofian, affects nearly 90% of new patients.

However, for the first time since February, the number of new cases in St. Petersburg exceeded 1,000 in 24 hours.

Nationally, 17,611 new cases have been registered in the country.

The outbreak was favored by a labor vaccine campaign, with Russians skeptical about the vaccine, which has been out of control for months, and wearing distant terms and masks.

Although the Russian vaccine Spotnik V has been available since December, 13% of the population has been vaccinated, according to the Kokov site, which consolidates data from regions and media due to the lack of official national statistics.

Russia, with 129,361 deaths recorded by the government, is the saddest European country. Rosstad, the broadest statistician for COVID-related deaths, has recorded approximately 270,000 deaths since the outbreak.

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