Hysteria over the virus outbreak continues to spread around the world despite the COVID-19 mortality rate being lower than other dangerous epidemics, such as the SARS virus. Public concern regarding the pandemic is only exacerbated by scaremongering by the mainstream media.

As the governments of countries affected by the COVID-19 outbreak are starting to take precautions by closing their borders and public places such as government facilities, schools, museums, and shops to prevent the spread of the disease, streets in the most affected cities have started to become deserted.

This is what a world in coronavirus lockdown looks like... pic.twitter.com/xu10JkVQR1 — Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) March 13, 2020

Apparently showing this social phenomenon was the core idea behind a video recently published by the Daily Mail tabloid that was captioned "This is what a world in coronavirus lockdown looks like…" But for some reason, the tabloid also chose to include Moscow in the video, despite the fact that there have been only 45 registered coronavirus cases in the whole of Russia and that the Moscow government has not gone as far as to put city facilities and public places on "lockdown" to prevent the disease from spreading.

Посмотреть эту публикацию в Instagram Публикация от Igor Bogatov| Russia🇷🇺|Moscow (@bgtvwld) 13 Мар 2020 в 9:24 PDT

Instead, authorities have limited preventive actions to mandatory checks for passengers coming from countries affected by the COVID-19 and to requiring that companies take body temperature measurements of their employees. No government facilities have been closed so far and only public gatherings of over 5,000 people have been banned as a precautionary measure.

Посмотреть эту публикацию в Instagram Публикация от Ivan Dmitrievich (@kelbornordo) 12 Мар 2020 в 10:03 PDT

Посмотреть эту публикацию в Instagram Публикация от Alexey (@alexlupic) 11 Мар 2020 в 12:58 PDT

Otherwise, life in Moscow, much like in other Russian cities, continues go on as usual, with people crowding the streets and subway stations, as well as cars moving on the roads (and getting stuck in traffic jams), as can be seen from numerous pictures published on social media.

© Sputnik / Alexey Maishev People walk in Moscow's subway, in Moscow, Russia. On Friday March 13 it has been officially recorded 34 cases of coronavirus in Moscow.

Although the Red Square often hosts numerous visitors, the weather has not been especially welcoming recently in the Russian capital, with temperatures slightly above 0 Celsius accompanied by light rain and up to 25-metre-per-second winds. The shift in weather came as an unwelcome change after a series of warm days that started around 6 March, with temperatures rising as high as 11 Celsius.