The head of Russia's state coronavirus task force says the number of deaths nationwide in June this year rose nearly 14% over June 2020, due to the spread of the delta variant that caused infections to soar and a record spike in deaths.slot
Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said Friday that current data show a 13.9% increase in mortality in June, year-on-year.
Russia has been struggling with a surge of infections since early June, with daily new cases rising from about 9,000 at the beginning of the summer to over 23,000 in early July. On Friday, the task force reported 25,766 new infections. For the first time in the pandemic, the daily death toll this week exceeded 700, with 726 new deaths registered Friday.
The delta variant is detected in 66% of cases, said Anna Popova, head of Russia's public health agency Rospotrebnadzor.
Overall in the pandemic, Golikova's task force has reported a total of more than 5.7 million confirmed infections and 141,501 deaths.
However, reports by Russia's state statistical service Rosstat that tally coronavirus-linked deaths retroactively reveal much higher numbers. According to Rosstat, last year alone COVID-19 was the cause of 144,691 deaths.
