The Guardian reported, on December 28, Russia officially admitted that the number of deaths caused by the Covid-19 pandemic was in fact three times higher than the number previously announced, making the country the third place in the world.
Before that, official data showed that Russia continuously maintained a low death rate. However, figures released recently by the Russian Federal Statistics Agency Rosstat show that the number of deaths for any reason in the January-November period increased by 229,700 people over the same period last year.
“More than 81% of this increase came from Covid-19” – quoted Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova, which means that more than 186,000 Russians have died from the pandemic.
Previously, the Russian health agency had recorded more than 3 million cases since the beginning of the pandemic, ranking 4th in the world. However, the number of deaths was only 55,265 people – the death rate was much lower than in other severe outbreaks in the world. Many experts say the reason is because Russia only listed cases of confirmed virus as the main cause of death after autopsy into the data.
With the newly released data of Rosstat, Russia is currently the third country in the world in terms of deaths, behind only the US and Brazil.
For now, the authorities are still trying not to re-impose a nationwide blockade. The Kremlin hopes that it can prop up the troubled economy, despite the country’s second wave of infections. It is expected that the economic growth rate will decrease by 3.9% in 2020.
During the year-end press conference held last month, President Putin rejected the idea of a blockade like many other European countries did during Christmas. “If we continue to follow the regulations and requests from the health authorities, we will not need to blockade“, – he said.
Some major Russian cities have adopted tighter measures, but authorities in many areas have restricted wearing masks in public places and preventing crowds from gathering. However, the public is gradually violating more, leading to epidemics appearing, causing serious overload of the health system.
For now, Russia is hoping for the Sputnik V vaccination program – which kicked off in December, aimed at people at high risk. On December 28, the Gamaleya Research Center, which developed Sputnik V, said that about 700,000 doses of the vaccine were released to the public. However, at present there are no data on how many people have been vaccinated.