Data triples Russia covid deaths

Official virus numbers found not to match new analyses

MOSCOW — After months of questions over the true scale of the coronavirus pandemic in Russia and the efficacy of a Russian-developed vaccine, the state statistical agency in Moscow has announced new figures indicating that the death toll from covid-19 is more than three times as high as officially reported.

From the start of the pandemic early this year, the health crisis has been enveloped and, critics say, distorted by political calculations as President Vladimir Putin and Kremlin-controlled media outlets have repeatedly boasted of Russian successes in combating the virus and keeping the fatality rate relatively low.

The new data, issued Monday by the state statistics agency Rosstat, would raise Russia from eighth to third in a ranking of countries by the number of deaths from the pandemic.

The government, ignoring the new figures from the statistics agency, has left unchanged its low covid-19 death count.

The official death count, which undercounts coronavirus fatalities, is based on a narrow definition of who has died from the virus and has frequently diverged from the real number reflected in figures issued by the statistics agency.

Russia has reported more than 3 million cases of infection, making it the world’s fourth- hardest- hit country, but only 55,827 deaths, fewer than in seven other countries. A demographer at a government agency who questioned the official fatality figures, dismissing them as far too low, was fired over the summer

The data issued by Rosstat, however, indicated that the demographer was right and the real number of fatalities is far higher than previously reported. The agency reported that the number of deaths between January and November was 229,732 higher than over the same period last year, an increase that a senior official blamed largely on the coronavirus.

Tatyana Golikova, a deputy prime minister leading Russia’s efforts to combat the pandemic, told a government briefing Monday that more than 81% of the increased number of deaths in 2020 was “due to covid,” which would mean that the virus had killed more than 186,000 Russians so far this year.

This is still far fewer than the more than 334,000 deaths caused by covid-19 in the United States but means that Russia has suffered more fatalities as a result of the pandemic than European countries like Italy, France and Britain, whose poor record has been regularly cited by Russian state media as proof of Russia’s relative triumph. As of Tuesday afternoon, the webpage giving Rosstat’s new data was inaccessible.

The gap between the official death rate and the real one is largely explained by

Russia’s practice of recording a death as coronavirus-related only in cases where an autopsy has confirmed the coronavirus as the main cause. Critics say this has allowed authorities to massage the numbers.

The new statistics come as China battles a surge in coronavirus cases and is implementing strict new rules ahead of its busiest holiday season, Lunar New Year in February.

For the past seven days, China reported new locally transmitted cases in clusters scattered across the country from Beijing to Liaoning province in the north and Sichuan in the southwest. Health officials on Tuesday documented 15 new local infections in Beijing and Liaoning, about half of them in a suburb of the capital.

In Hangzhou in the east, a security guard was confirmed to have the virus, while in Heihe, near China’s border with Russia, all flights were canceled after a student and his grandmother tested positive. As of Tuesday, 22 neighborhoods and districts were in what authorities described as “wartime” mode after the discovery of new cases.

Data released by China’s public health authorities late Monday showed that the scale of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, where the virus was first detected last year, may have been 10 times the official figure.

A survey in April of some 34,000 people found that 4.4% of those tested in Wuhan had antibodies for fighting off the virus. That would suggest as many as 500,000 residents in Wuhan had the virus, compared with the official tally of 50,000.

Authorities, on high alert ahead of the Lunar New Year, issued new restrictions on movement and gatherings. Last year, the holiday period, during which citizens make an estimated 3 billion trips across the country, was interrupted by the outbreak.

This time, residents may still be restricted from celebrating. The northwestern city of Lanzhou called on families to visit relatives, a new year tradition, online rather than in person. Several cities restricted the size of gatherings to 10 people, while in Anhui province, any company gathering of more than 50 guests must be registered with the government.

Measures were strictest in Beijing, where officials have tested more than 1.2 million people in the suburb of Shunyi since last week after two new coronavirus cases were detected Friday. The area was placed under “wartime” controls over the weekend.

Beijing residents have been encouraged to celebrate the holiday in the capital, while party officials have been ordered not to leave, unless given permission. Fairs, sports events and travel groups have been suspended.