Russian Deaths Soar 19% in June From 2019 as Covid-19 Toll Rises

(Bloomberg) -- The number of deaths in Russia rose 19% in June from a year earlier, with nearly half of the additional victims diagnosed with Covid-19.

Russia recorded 25,521 more deaths in June 2020 than the same month last year, according to data from the Federal Statistics Service published Sunday. In the period, 11,917 of the fatalities had Covid-19.

The figures are significantly higher than the fatalities initially reported by authorities. Russia has faced questions about the low number of Covid-19 deaths it registers compared to other countries with major outbreaks of the pandemic.

Even within the government bureaucracy, there are widely divergent figures of the toll from the coronavirus.

The National Virus Response Center, which provides daily updates on mortality, reported 4,627 deaths attributed to Covid-19 in June.

Part of the discrepancy is because the state statistics agency reports several categories of coronavirus-related fatalities, including deaths where the disease was the likely cause even though it was not detected and deaths from other causes in which the victim was diagnosed with the virus. Even in its narrowest category, the agency reported 5,448 fatalities directly attributed to Covid-19 in June, 18% more than the response center.

Russian officials say the country’s data conforms to World Health Organization guidelines. The statistics service also revised the number of coronavirus-related deaths in May to 12,669, a 1.7% increase.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.