Russia posts record COVID-19 deaths for third day running

MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday (Jul 1) reported 672 COVID-19 deaths over the past 24 hours, according to a government tally, setting a pandemic high of fatalities for the third day in a row.

The country is battling a surging outbreak driven by the highly infectious Delta variant and worsened by a lagging jab drive, with President Vladimir Putin urging Russians on national television Wednesday to get vaccinated.

The daily death toll released on Thursday topped Wednesday's record of 669 and Tuesday's of 652.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has said that the Delta variant, which was first identified in India, accounts for 90 per cent of cases in the Russian capital.

He has introduced a host of new restrictions to counter the surge, including ordering businesses to send home 30 per cent of unvaccinated employees and allowing restaurants to only serve inside patrons who have been inoculated or infected in the past six months.

Sobyanin also earlier this month ordered 60 per cent of the city's service industry workers to be fully inoculated by mid-August, with more than a dozen Russian regions since following his lead.

READ: Moscow begins booster vaccine campaign as Russia's COVID-19 cases surge

READ: Putin says he had Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine

The Kremlin had set a goal of fully inoculating 60 per cent of Russia's population by September, but conceded earlier this week that it would not be able to meet that target.

Authorities have faced a population highly sceptical of coronavirus vaccines, in particular Russia's homegrown jabs, with independent polling showing that 60 per cent do not plan on getting inoculated.

As of Thursday, just 17.4 million of Russia's population of about 146 million people - or about 12 per cent - had been fully vaccinated, according to the Gogov website, which tallies COVID-19 data from the regions.

Russia, with 135,886 deaths from the virus, has the highest official toll from COVID-19 in Europe.

BOOKMARK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and its developments

Download our app or subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak: https://cna.asia/telegram