Russia registers record for all time high COVID-linked deaths in October: Reports

Russia's federal statistics agency Rosstat recently claimed that a total of 74,893 deaths were registered owing to COVID-19 in the country in October - the highest monthly tally since the start of the pandemic. According to a report released by Rosstat on Friday, December 3, the total number of virus-related deaths between April 2020 and October 2021 was over 537,000, nearly double the toll reported by Russia's governmental coronavirus task force to date. Rosstat's tally system employs a larger set of criteria than the task force, as per the Associated Press (AP).

According to the report, COVID-19 was directly responsible for 58,822 of the 74,893 deaths in October, whereas, 9,912 deaths were presumably caused by the virus, but were not validated by a test. The virus was "substantially" linked to fatal complications of other diseases in 1,141 cases, and 5,018 patients tested positive for the virus but died of other causes, the report claimed. Russia's overall mortality increased by 20.3% in October this year, compared to the same month in 2020, according to Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, who also heads the task group. She attributed the entire growth to COVID-19.

The surge coincided with low vaccination rates and poor adherence to public health measures, prompting more regions to mandate COVID-19 doses for individuals aged 60 and above in a bid to promote vaccine uptake and contain the spread of the virus. People in these age brackets must be fully inoculated by February 1, according to authorities in Komi's northern area. Meanwhile, the Omsk area of Siberia implemented a more stringent deadline, requiring those aged 60 and above to have their first immunisation dose by December 24 and second by January 15, AP reported.

40% of people fully inoculated so far in Russia

Similar mandates have recently been implemented in several other localities, including Lipetsk, Kurgan, and the city of St. Petersburg. Vaccine requirements for certain groups of essential workers were also implemented in dozens of localities. Even though Russia approved a locally made COVID-19 vaccine - Sputnik V - months before the rest of the world, just about 40% of the country's almost 146 million people have been fully vaccinated so far. According to Russian authorities, two people who returned to Russia from South Africa on Friday, December 4, tested positive for COVID-19, and their test samples are being investigated to determine if they have the new Omicron strain.

(With AP inputs)

Image: AP/Pixabay/Representative