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For months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has bragged about his low death rates. The low number of crown-related deaths is a sign that Russia has handled the pandemic better than Western countries, the president believes.
Now it turns out that the death toll is much higher than what the Russian authorities have said.
Last Christmas, the state statistics agency Rosstat published a summary of all the deaths that have occurred in the country so far this year. This summary shows that there have been 229,700 more deaths in Russia between January and November than in the same period in 2019.
New corona virus, even more contagious
81 percent
“More than 81 percent of these are due to the crown,” Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said, according to The Guardian. That equates to more than 186,000 deaths.
The official figures, however, show the opposite. The renowned Johns Hopkins University, which compiles figures from official sources, has recorded only 55,000 Russian deaths.
That’s less than a third of what the deputy prime minister says now.
Move up the list
The new figures move Russia from eighth to third place on the list of countries with the most crown-related deaths.
Only the United States and Brazil are above Russia on the list, if you include the new figures. According to Johns Hopkins, 336,000 people have died of corona in the United States and 191,000 in Brazil.
Since the start of the pandemic, Russia has registered just over three million cases of infection. It is the fourth largest in the world, after the United States, India and Brazil.
Sputnik V
Russia has started vaccinating with its vaccine, called Sputnik V.
The first in the country are people between 18 and 60 who work in high-risk professions, but in the new year, those over 60 will also be able to get vaccinated.
The state research institute Gamaleya, which has created the Sputnik vaccine, says they have produced around 700,000 doses so far.
