MOSCOW , Russia's coronavirus death record remained intact for the second consecutive day Saturday as new infections fell.
According to Friday's report, the state coronavirus taskforce reported 1,254 deaths from COVID-19.
Another 37,120 cases were confirmed by the task force. Although the number of new cases per day has fallen in recent weeks, they are still higher than those seen during previous waves of the virus.
Low vaccination rates and lax attitudes of Russians toward taking preventative measures are the reasons for this latest increase in deaths. Nearly 40% of Russia's nearly 146,000 million inhabitants have been fully vaccinated, despite the fact that Russia approved Sputnik V, a COVID-19 vaccine developed domestically. This was months ahead of most other countries.
Russia's coronavirus taskforce has reported almost 9.3 million confirmed infections, 262,843 deaths from COVID-19, the highest death rate in Europe.
Experts believe that the actual figure could be even higher. Rosstat, Russia's statistical agency, reports that retroactively tally coronavirus linked deaths shows much higher mortality. According to them, 462,000 COVID-19-related deaths occurred between April 2020 & September 2019.
Russian officials claim that the task force includes only deaths where COVID-19 is the primary cause. They also use data from medical facilities. Rosstat uses a wider range of criteria to count virus-related deaths. It draws its numbers from civil registry offices that register a death.
