Moscow’s mayor has said that the city’s coronavirus situation is getting worse, and extended a remote learning period for secondary schools as infections climbed nationwide at a near-record daily rate.

Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said pupils at secondary schools from Class six (age 12) upward would continue online classes for two more weeks until Nov 22. They began remote learning three weeks ago.

“The coronavirus situation in Moscow began to get worse again at the start of this week, as we can see from the number of patients and hospitalisations,” Sobyanin said on his website.

Russia reported 19,404 new infections in the previous 24 hours, including 5,255 in Moscow, and 292 virus-related deaths nationwide, pushing the official death toll to 29,509.