Moscow’s health department has said that it will begin regarding all pneumonia patients as potential sufferers of the new coronavirus and route them to hospitals accordingly, after doctors raised concerns about the accuracy of tests used to diagnose the virus.

The policy change was made at the request of doctors at hospitals specially designated to treat Covid-19, which often causes pneumonia. Tests for Covid-19 were producing accurate results only 70-80 per cent of the time, the doctors said.

Reuters reported last month that a sharp spike in the incidence of pneumonia in Moscow had fuelled concerns about the reliability of official data on the number of cases, which at the time was well below levels seen in other European capitals.

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