(Moscow) Russia recorded 44,265 COVID-19-related deaths in September, statistics agency Rosstat said on Friday, a figure almost twice the figure established by the government during the same period.
The total death toll from the pandemic in Russia stood at nearly 450,000 deaths at the end of September, according to Rosstat, who has a broader definition of deaths linked to the virus.
According to this report, Russia is the fourth most damaged country in the world, after the United States, Brazil and India.
The government’s count, which is based on a very restrictive definition of deaths, reported 24,031 deaths from the pandemic in September. In all, according to this source, 236,220 people have died from COVID-19 in Russia since the start of the epidemic, about half the number established by Rosstat.
The deadliest month since the start of the pandemic in Russia was July this year, with 50,421 deaths according to Rosstat.
Since the end of the summer, Russia has not ceased to beat its records of deaths and daily contaminations, while barely a third of the population, suspicious, is fully vaccinated.
After strict containment in spring 2020, the authorities refused to reconfine, despite new waves of epidemics, in order to limit the economic losses.
On Thursday, however, the public authorities resigned themselves to shutting down “non-essential” services (restaurants, places of leisure, non-food stores) for eleven days in Moscow in an attempt to contain the virus.
Nationally, President Vladimir Putin has ordered a week off from October 30 to November 7 to limit the massacre.