As the country fights a third wave of the pandemic caused by the Indian or delta strain of the coronavirus, Russian health minister Mikhail Murashko said on Tuesday that there are currently 151,000 patients infected with Covid-19 in hospitals.
Muraško told Covid-19 patients “182,000 beds, 151,000 receiving treatment,” Muraško said during a televised government meeting, adding that “the situation is tense, especially in big cities.”
652 Covid-19 casualties have been reported in Russia in the last 24 hours, the highest number of deaths per day since the pandemic began.
Previously, the largest number of victims – 635 – was registered on December 24.
A record number of Covid-19 casualties have been registered in St Petersburg, where the European Football Championship is taking place, with 119 deaths. In Moscow, 121 people died from Covid-19.
The quarter-finals of the European Football Championship are scheduled to take place in St. Petersburg on Friday, and the organizers do not intend to cancel it due to the coronavirus outbreak.
In the last 24 hours, 20,616 new cases of Covid-19 infection have been registered in Russia, and the country currently has the fifth highest number of infections in the world.
In Russia, only 21.2 million of the approximately 146 million people in the country have received the first dose of Covid-19, according to media estimates and regional data on the prevalence of Covid-19 in the Gogov website.
A recent survey shows that 60% of Russians do not plan to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
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