Russia has acknowledged that the death toll from COVID-19 is three times higher than previously reported – making it the third-highest death toll from the pandemic.
Experts have long doubted President Vladimir Putin’s repeated claims about a low mortality rate from the virus, which he praised as showing that Russia is doing a “better” job of managing the crisis than Western countries.
Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova finally proved the criticism right on Monday, as she revealed that the actual death toll is probably 186,000 – not the 55,000 officially reported.
Golikova made the revelation after the statistics agency Rosstat said that deaths between January and November increased by 229,700 compared to the previous year.
“More than 81% of this increase in mortality during this period is due to COVID,” Golikova said, according to France-Presse.
The new figure means that the number of deaths in the country is the third highest in the world, behind the US with over 335,000 deaths and even behind Brazil with 191,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
To date, Russia has continued to have nearly 3.1 million confirmed infections among its population of 144 million.
Putin, 68, recently said he now intends to receive the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine from his country, a month after saying he would not receive the vaccine.
Wired Post