MOSCOW (AP) – More than 87,500 people with COVID-19 died in Russia in November, the highest montly tally since the start of the pandemic, the state statistics agency reported on Thursday.
A report by Rosstat brought the overall number of virus-linked deaths between April 2020 and October 2021 to nearly 626,000 – more than twice the widely-cited toll reported by Russia’s state coronavirus task force to date. Rosstat uses broader criteria in its tallying system compared to the task force.
According to the Rosstat report, 71,187 deaths were caused directly by confirmed COVID-19, 8,939 deaths were likely caused by the virus but it wasn’t confirmed by a test, in 1,477 cases the virus significantly exacerbated fatal complications of other diseases and 5,924 people tested positive for the virus but died of other causes.
The surge came amid low vaccination rates and poor compliance with coronavirus restrictions.
Just 51 per cent of Russia’s nearly 146 million people have been fully vaccinated, even though the country approved a domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine – Sputnik V – months before most of the world.
Russia in recent months has faced a tide of contagion with record numbers of infections and deaths. The situation has improved over the past few weeks, but the authorities are now bracing up for a new wave of infection caused by the Omicron variant.
