Russia to postpone Cosmonautics Day celebrations until October - source

MOSCOW, March 17. /TASS/. Russia will reschedule the annual Cosmonautics Day from April 12 - the day of the first manned flight to space - to October 4, a source in the rocket and space industry told TASS on Tuesday. "Due to the current coronavirus epidemiological situation, the Cosmonautics Day celebrations, which traditionally envisage mass events and arrival of foreign guests, will be postponed from April 12 to October 4. In other words, this year it will coincide with the anniversary of the first satellite’s launch," the source said. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has signed a decree on Monday banning all public events in Moscow held inside and attended by over 50 people, along with all outside gatherings. The ban will be in place until April 10, 2020. A pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center with a population of 12 million, in late December 2019. Cases of the new coronavirus have also been reported from about 130 countries and territories, including Russia, which has 93 coronavirus cases. The World Health Organization says that the novel coronavirus cases across the globe have exceeded 170,000, with more than 6,000 deaths. The WHO has officially described the situation with the novel coronavirus as a pandemic. Read more