Suddenly three times more deaths: Russia drastically corrects the number of victims

Monday 28 December 2020

Suddenly three times more deaths
Russia drastically corrects the number of victims

Just a few days ago, Russia is in relatively good shape with officially reported 53,000 corona deaths. But now the authorities are correcting their victim record. With a terrifying result: the new number is around three and a half times higher than the previous one.

Russia has drastically corrected the number of its corona deaths upwards and is now officially the third highest number of victims worldwide. In November, 25,788 people infected with the novel corona virus died, according to figures from the Russian statistics agency Rosstat. Since the beginning of the year, there have been more than 186,000 corona deaths in the country. Only in the USA with more than 330,000 deaths and Brazil with more than 190,000 deaths were more victims of the pandemic registered.

According to the statistics agency, excess mortality in Russia was 229,700 deaths between January and November. More than 81 percent of this can be attributed to Covid-19, said Vice Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova according to Russian news agencies. Excess mortality is an increased death rate compared to other periods or expected values.

On Christmas Eve, the Russian authorities had given the number of corona deaths since the beginning of the pandemic at a good 53,000. Only cases in which Covid-19 was unequivocally confirmed as the cause of death by an autopsy were included in the balance sheet. The corrected victim balance is now around three and a half times as high.

More than three million infected people

In total, more than three million infections with the coronavirus have been detected in Russia since the beginning of the pandemic. This is the fourth highest number of cases in the world. Experts had therefore already expressed doubts about the relatively low official number of victims so far, on the basis of which the Russian authorities declared their strategy against the virus to be successful.

Russia is currently battling a second wave of pandemics. Nevertheless, out of consideration for the economy, the Russian government wants to avoid another lockdown. In the fight against the pandemic, she relies on the Russian corona vaccine Sputnik V.

The authorities have not yet disclosed how many people in Russia have already been vaccinated. The vaccine developer, the state-owned Gamaleya Research Institute, announced that around 700,000 doses have been delivered so far. In a survey by the state institute VTsIOM on Wednesday, however, only 38 percent of those questioned in Russia stated that they want to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.