A Siberian village is conducting trench warfare against the coronavirus.
Russian authorities dug two ditches around Shuluta, which has 37 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among its 390 residents, to prevent those skeptical about an order to self-isolate from venturing out.
Local officials believe the bug was spread throughout the village — located some 20 miles east of Lake Baikal — during a traditional shaman ritual performed by an infected woman on June 10.
Administrative chief Ivan Alkheyev said 95 other people are believed to have been in contact with those infected and are also required to remain under quarantine.
“I don’t believe it! There should at least be symptoms and I don’t have any,” local resident Engelsina Shaboyeva, who has tested positive for the bug, told a TV station.
Another resident, Svetlana Shaglanova, whose husband died after a stroke and was said to have tested positive, said she did not agree that he also caught the virus.
“They put that he died of the virus on the papers, but it is not true, it was just a stroke,” she said.
The trenches that encircle Shuluta were dug on June 29 also as a means of preventing potentially infected outsiders from driving through the village to nearby Tunka National Park.
The only accessible road to the village is now patrolled by local officials and Russian troops who allow only ambulances and food deliveries through.
Meanwhile, Russian consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said anyone who performed a shaman ritual despite a ban on public events could face a fine.
The Republic of Buryatia, where Shuluta is located, had registered 3,141 cases of the coronavirus as of Monday, according to the Moscow Times.
Russia’s official case tally, the fourth largest in the world, has topped 687,000.
With Post wires