Russia posts record virus deaths for 3rd day in a row
MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday reported 672 coronavirus deaths over the past 24 hours, according to a government tally, seting a pandemic high of fatalities for the third day in a row.
The country is batling a surging outbreak driven by the highly infectious Delta variant and worsened by a lagging jab drive, with President Vladimir Putin urging Russians on national television on Wednesday to get vaccinated.
The daily death toll released on Thursday topped Wednesday’s record of 669 and Tuesday’s of 652.
Saint Petersburg, which is due to host the Spain vs. Switzerland Euro 2020 quarter-final on Friday in front of thousands of spectators, saw the most deaths with 115.
Dozens of Finland supporters were infected in the city, where authorities have introduced minimal restrictions beyond banning food sales at fan zones, ater they travelled there earlier this month for their team’s loss to Belgium.
In Moscow, where the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin has said that the Delta variant - first identified in India - accounts for 90 per cent of cases, authorities have introduced a host of new restrictions.
Businesses have been ordered to send home 30 per cent of unvaccinated employees and restaurants to only serve inside patrons who have been inoculated or infected in the past six months.
Sobyanin also earlier this month required 60 per cent of the city’s service industry workers to be fully inoculated by mid-august, with more than a dozen Russian regions since following his lead.
On Thursday, the Western exclave of Kaliningrad became the latest region to introduce new restrictions, unvaccinated tourists from taking bus tours.
Also Thursday, hotels in the Krasnodar region - home to Russia’s popular Black Sea resort city Sochi - began accepting only vaccinated guests or those with a negative test.
The Kremlin had set a goal of fully inoculating 60 per cent of Russia’s population by September, but conceded earlier this week that it would not be able to meet that target even though free jabs have been available since early December.