Automobile, railway, pedestrian and river checkpoints on the Russian border will go into lockdown on Monday in order to prevent Covid-19 from spreading across the country, the government has announced.

Authorities said that the measure was "temporary," but provided no indication as to when frontiers will re-open.

The ban doesn’t apply to diplomats or members of official delegations departing from the country.

Russian truck drivers serving international routes, as well as the crews of trains and river vessels, will be able to return home. Exceptions are also being made for residents of the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, as well as Russian passport holders living in the self-declared People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has been making a large-scale effort to tackle the highly contagious disease, which included canceling all regular and charter flights in and out of the country.

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The whole of next week has been declared a paid nationwide holiday, for non-essential workers who cannot work from home, with the public advised to stay indoors. Restaurants, parks, cinemas and other establishments where large groups of people can gather will also shut down.

The overall number of infected now stands at 1,264 in Russia, with 228 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. Up to seven Covid-19 patients have died.

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