Russia on Monday said that more than 186,000 people had died from COVID-19, a much heavier toll than it has previously reported that puts the country among the world’s worst-hit.
The Rosstat statistics agency said that the number of deaths from all causes recorded from January to last month had risen by 229,700 on the previous year, with 81 percent attributable to the novel coronavirus, an official said.
“More than 81 percent of this increase in mortality over this period is due to COVID,” said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, meaning that 186,057 Russians have died from the coronavirus.
Photo: AFP
Russian health officials have registered more than 3 million infections since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, placing the country’s caseload at fourth-highest in the world.
However, they have only reported 55,265 total deaths — a much lower fatality rate than in other badly hit countries.
Russia has been criticized for only listing COVID-19 deaths where an autopsy confirms the virus was the main cause.
Rosstat’s figures mean Russia’s fatality total would actually be third-highest worldwide after the US (333,140) and Brazil (191,139), according to an Agence France-Presse count.
The figures came as authorities hold out against reimposing a nationwide lockdown even as the country is battered by a second wave of infections.
Authorities hope to uphold a struggling economy by avoiding a shutdown and instead coral Russia’s outbreak by vaccinating people en masse with its homemade Sputnik V jab.
While Russia has not said how many people it has vaccinated so far, the shot’s developer, the state-run Gamaleya Research Institute, on Monday said that about 700,000 doses had so far been released for domestic use.
However, according to surveys by state-run pollster VTsIOM and the Levada polling agency, only 38 percent of Russians are planning to get vaccinated.
The country reported 27,002 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, including 5,641 in Moscow, taking the total to 3,105,037 since the pandemic began.
Authorities also reported 562 deaths in the past 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 55,827.
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