MOSCOW – The record high number of coronavirus deaths in Russia extended for a second straight day on Saturday, as the number of new infections fell.
The state’s coronavirus task force reported 1,254 COVID-19 deaths, in line with Friday’s tally.
The task force also reported 37,120 new confirmed cases. New daily infections in recent weeks appear to be on a downward trend, but still higher than in previous virus outbreaks.
The most recent increases in infections and deaths come amid low vaccination rates and lax public attitudes towards prevention. About 40% of Russia’s nearly 146 million people are fully immunized, even though the country approved a domestically produced COVID-19 vaccine months before most of the world.
In total, the coronavirus task force has reported almost 9.3 million confirmed infections and 262,843 deaths from COVID-19, by far the highest death toll in Europe.
Some experts believe the real number is even higher. Reports by Russia’s statistical agency, Rosstat, show that the coronavirus death rate associated with the tally comes back showing a much higher death rate. They say 462,000 people with COVID-19 died between April 2020 and September of this year.
Russian officials said the task force only included deaths from COVID-19 as the main cause and used data from medical facilities. Rosstat uses broader criteria to count virus-related deaths and obtains numbers from civil registries where the registration of a death is completed.
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