Monitoring of the Situation with the Coronavirus Pandemic and the Measures to Contain It Over Februrary 2021

The situation with the coronavirus around the world remains rather complicated during February. This being said, many countries (especially in the EU) are on the cusp of the third wave of the pandemic in the second half of February due to new strains. Many governments extended or even tightened the lockdown measures. In February, Russia observed a consistent reduction in the number of reported new cases (morbidity stabilized at a rather low level in Moscow). Having said that, soft containment measures and their gradual relaxing happen on the back of mass vaccination campaign and progressive formation of herd immunity. Nevertheless, widespread vaccination remains an urgent task of the Government of the Russian Federation and competent public authorities. Analysis of information on specifics of new mutations demonstrates that one of the paramount tasks of vaccine creators is to introduce changes in vaccine components adapting them to new strains