It looks like every country is mobilising fast against the common enemy - COVID-19, the Novel Corona Virus! After having been at the mercy of this dreaded Corona Virus Pandemic for nearly a year, humans have now been armed with a number of vaccine candidates, to prevent any further spread of the Virus. Just after a day of the United Kingdom providing Emergency Authorisation to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine candidate, the Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that his government will be going in for mass vaccination of Russians against the Corona Virus, from next week!
News reports state that Putin has authorised the use of the first ever vaccine registered against the Corona Virus - Sputnik V, which he has been backing right from the time it was announced despite it not undergoing the mandatory Phase 3 clinical trials, to be used in the mass vaccination! Russia registered 589 new daily COVID related deaths, which might have tipped Putin into issuing this order. Reports quote Putin as telling the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova, "Let's agree on this - you will not report to me next week, but you will start mass vaccination... let's get to work already."
International news agency Reuters has reported Golikova as saying that large-scale vaccination could begin on a voluntary basis in Russia, from December. The Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko has been reported as telling that already over 100,000 Russians had been vaccinated against COVID-19, as Moscow presented the Sputnik V vaccine through video link, to the United Nations. It is also being reported that Russia has already produced nearly 2 million doses of Sputnik V and that teachers and medics would be the first priority to receive the vaccine. President Vladimir Putin has also said, "I would ask you to organise the work so that by the end of next week we will have started this large-scale vaccination."