Meeting of Council for Strategic Development and National Projects: Putin chaired a meeting of the held via videoconference

MOSCOW: body established to ensure cooperation between the federal government bodies, the government bodies of constituent entities, local government bodies, public associations, research and other organisations with respect to issues related to the strategic development of the Russian Federation and the implementation of national projects and programmes in the major spheres of the country’s strategic development.

Let us get down to work.

The agenda of today’s meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects includes many important matters of principle.

We will discuss the key fields of development for our country, our further steps with our colleagues from the Government, parliament members, heads of regions, business and public associations. The primary common goal of these steps is to improve the quality of our citizens’ life.

I would like to stress once again that the people should be in the focus of all our decisions, plans and programmes. We have already spoken about this many times. The interests and security of Russian families must be our top priority.

It was this logic that we followed during the coronavirus, when our main priority was to save each and every life, protect people’s health as well as their confidence in the future. It was there that we concentrated the efforts of both federal and regional authorities, our medical and scientific centres, the business community and non-profit and volunteer organisations.

That truly nationwide unity has allowed us to adequately respond to the challenge – not without some problems, of course, not without a few failures, but on the whole, we can say it was a proper response to the epidemic.

More than 300,000 Russians are being tested for coronavirus daily. As of July 11, more than 170,377 dedicated hospital beds have been deployed around the country. And only 66 percent of those are being used for their intended purpose right now. As a result, we have been able to begin a gradual transitioning of medical facilities back to how they usually work, and this is also being done quite quickly.

I should note that the mortality situation, which I believe is one of the main indicators of our effectiveness, looks quite good. The COVID-19 mortality rate per 100,000 is lower in Russia, by far lower than in many other countries, including European countries with developed healthcare systems.

The daily percentage of cases detected in our country remains stable. And the number of those who have recovered is growing. In this regard, the overwhelming majority of Russian regions have begun to ease the self-isolation regulations and other epidemic-related restrictions.

We do know that the fight against this threat is still ongoing. But most importantly, we can see a positive trend. And now it is important – acting carefully, of course, and with consideration of the current situation – to continue our efforts to overcome the damage caused to the economy and the social sphere.