The situation continues to deteriorate in Russia, hit hard by the Delta variant, where the cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg have recorded daily records due to Covid-19, authorities announced on Monday.
According to official data, Moscow has recorded 124 dead and St. Petersburg 110 dead in the past 24 hours, surpassing the records the two cities had already broken over the weekend.
Nearly 2,000 people hospitalized every day in Moscow
Across the country, 21,650 new people have been infected, according to figures released on Monday, for a total of more than 5.4 million cases since the start of the pandemic. And 611 people have died, out of a total of 133,893, according to official figures. Moscow had already broken its record for daily coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic on Sunday, with 114 dead. According to the mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, nearly 2,000 people are hospitalized every day because of Covid-19 in the capital and nearly 75% of the available beds are occupied.
The country's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, also posted a record-breaking death toll with 107 deaths on Saturday.
The city is one of the hosts of Euro-2020 football and is due to host a quarter-final on Friday, potentially with France if it beats Switzerland on Monday.
Russia, one of the countries hardest hit in the world by the pandemic, has been struck for a few weeks by the Delta variant, more contagious and which worries all over the world.
No general containment
In an attempt to stem the epidemic, Moscow has reimposed the return to telework for at least 30% of unvaccinated employees, compulsory vaccination of employees in the service sector or the creation of a health pass to go to restaurants. A general confinement, as in spring 2020, is not envisaged for the moment in the city of more than 12 million inhabitants in order to preserve the economy.
More than ten Russian regions have also introduced compulsory vaccination for certain categories of the population, especially in the European part of the country, but also in distant regions such as those of Sakhalin and Magadan.
The vaccination campaign has been lagging behind in Russia since December amid widespread public mistrust and despite repeated calls from President Vladimir Putin.
Only 21.8 million people out of 146 million inhabitants have received at least one dose, according to Monday's figures released by the Gogov site, which aggregates data from regions and media for lack of official national statistics.
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