Murmansk Mayor Yevgeny Nikora tests positive as coronavirus continues to spike on the Kola Peninsula

“I feel good, the doctor said that I have a moderate illness,” Yevgeny Nikora says in a statement posted on the regional authorities’ portal.

Nikora is a popular head of city administration who spends a lot of time attending public events and visiting citizens in Murmansk. On his official Facebook-page, Nikora’s last post is from June 22, when he lays flowers at Eternal flame in front of Alosha, the big soldier statue in memory of World War II, on the hill above the city.

Nikora stands shoulder-by-shoulder with Governor Andrey Chibis in company of high-ranking officials, including Commander of Russia’s Northern Fleet, Vice-Admiral Aleksandr Moiseyev. None of those present wear face-masks.

On Yevgeny Nikora’s private Facebook-profil, though, many more photos of different events over the last week are posted. The posts show the Mayor in meeting with a 98-years old veteran woman, visiting a newly renovated library, talking to construction workers outside the regional Duma, attending a book presentation and meeting volunteers cleaning rubbish from the streets.

The numbers of people infected with coronavirus meanwhile continue to spike in the Murmansk region. 153 new cases were registered on Thursday bringing the total number of confirmed cases on the Kola Peninsula up to 6512. All this week have seen a daily increase in infections from 135 to 163 persons, the Vkontakte-page keeping track of the virus-infection in Murmansk informs. 

Murmansk is the largest city in the region with close to 300,000 inhabitants. 2646 cases are confirmed in the city. Second on the list of Covid-19 infections is Belokamenka, Novatek’s Kola Yard construction site where the majority of workers are fly-in, fly-out shifts. Here, 2295 workers have tested positive.

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Severomorsk, the Northern Fleet’s headquarters, have 338 cases, while the industrial city of Monchegorsk has 312 cases. In the Pechenga district, closest to the border to Norway, 162 people have tested positive for the virus.

23 deaths connected to Covid-19 are registered in the Murmansk region.

Russia confirmed 6635 new coronavirus infections Friday, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 713,936. Over the past 24 hours 174 people have died, bringing the total toll to 11,017, the Moscow Times reports.