Coronavirus Pandemic Should Help World Establish Cooperation to Fight Common Risks, Lavrov Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia is urging the international community to use the situation with the pandemic of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to establish cooperation in the fight against common challenges facing humanity, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the Argumenty i Fakty newspaper.

Lavrov said the disease spread had had a serious impact on all aspects of international political and socio-economic life.

“COVID-19 provoked a deep crisis in the global economy, which is in for a long period of recovery. The world is not only experiencing a severe economic downturn, but it may also be on the threshold of restructuring the usual economic ties,” he said.

However, Lavrov said, confrontation continued in global affairs.

“Instead of uniting in the fight against coronavirus, we are seeing attempts to look for those to blame for the spread of the infection," the minister said. “Once again we call for common action against a common misfortune, for using the 'coronacrisis' as an opportunity for establishing broad international cooperation in the fight against common risks and challenges facing humanity”.

Russia's overall number of recorded coronavirus cases has topped 897,000. The country's COVID-19 death toll is over 15,000. More than 703,000 people (about 78 percent of the country's total case tally) have recovered.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a pandemic on 11 March.

According to the WHO, the global coronavirus death toll has surpassed 732,000 people, with the number of cases worldwide exceeding 19.9 million.