Russia reports more than 900 deaths in a day

Russia reported a record high number of daily coronavirus deaths yesterday as the country struggles with stubbornly high infection rates and regions beyond Moscow cautiously bring back pandemic restrictions.

The world’s fifth worsthit country with more than 7.5 million infections, Russia has seen cases climb since August driven by the contagious Delta variant and a sluggish vaccinations drive.

A government tally recorded 929 Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, Russia’s highest daily virus death toll since the outbreak of the pandemic. Several Russia-made jabs have been available for months, but authorities have struggled to encourage its vaccine-sceptic population to get inoculated. As of yesterday, just under 30 per cent of Russia’s 146 million population had been fully vaccinated, according to the Gogov website.