Keep your hydroxychloroquine, President Trump. Vladimir V. Putin has found an even more unorthodox way to fight off the coronavirus: a “disinfectant tunnel”.

Visitors coming to see the Russian President at the country retreat where he is sheltering must first pass through the tunnel and be sprayed with a fine mist of a chemical agent intended to kill pathogens.

The Russian-made device had been installed at the home outside Moscow, Novo-Ogaryovo, RIA Novosti, a state-controlled news agency, reported. The news agency posted a video of a man in a suit walking through a demonstration model of the tunnel.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, who recently returned to work after recovering from Covid-19, has said that anyone meeting the President in person is tested beforehand for the virus.

Like Trump, who says he has taken the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to try to ward of infection, Putin has eschewed wearing a mask during what have become extremely rare public appearances. But he nonetheless seems spooked by the virus.

For the past two months, he has stayed away from the Kremlin in the centre of Moscow, the epicentre of the pandemic in Russia. He has instead governed the country via video-conference from a drab and apparently windowless room — dubbed “the bunker” by Russian journalists — at his country residence.

Physically, the Russian President appears to be in good health. Politically, it is another matter: His approval ratings have slumped to 59 percent, the lowest since he came to power 20 years ago.