Russia expecting sharp rise in May deaths due to virus

MOSCOW: Russia will see a sharp rise in the mortality figures for May, officials said Friday, as the coronavirus death toll rises.

“There will be a significant mortality increase in May” Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said at a government meeting with President Vladimir Putin, referring to official analysis and the country’s coronavirus curve.

“The illness and chronic conditions don’t always have a positive ending,” Golikova said, despite doctors trying to “save the maximum number of patients”.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin also said the capital’s death toll for May would be “considerably higher than in April”.

His deputy Anastasia Rakova later explained in a televised interview that “the peak of mortality is usually delayed by two to three weeks after the peak of hospitalisations” for the coronavirus.

Russia registered 150 deaths from the coronavirus on Friday, its highest daily rate yet, amid criticism that the authorities are under-reporting deaths to play down the scale of the crisis.

Health officials have reported a total of 3,249 virus-related deaths, a fraction of the number in some European countries, while Russia has the secondhighest number of infections in the world, after the US, with 326,448 cases.

Russian officials said fatalities will rise in May due to the number of gravely ill patients in hospital. Around 109,000 people are currently hospitalised, with some 2,500 of those in intensive care, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said Friday.