MOSCOW: Russia rep­orted a record high number of daily coronavirus deaths on Wednesday as the country struggles with stubbornly high infection rates and regions beyond Moscow cautiously bring back pandemic restrictions.

The world’s fifth worst-hit country with more than 7.5 million infections, Russia has seen cases climb since August, driven by the contagious Delta variant and a sluggish vaccinations drive.

A government tally recorded 929 Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, Russia’s highest daily virus death toll since the outbreak of the pandemic.

Several Russia-made jabs have been available for months, but authorities have struggled to encourage its vaccine-sceptic population to get inoculated.

Polls show that more than half of Russians do not plan to get a shot.

As of Wednesday, just under 30 per cent of Russia’s 146m population had been fully vaccinated, according to the Gogov website, which tallies Covid-19 data from the regions.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said earlier this week that death rates were high among unvaccinated Russians.

The surging infections have come without any real pandemic restrictions to limit the spread, but several regions have re-introduced QR codes for access to public places.

Moscow — the epicentre of Russia’s outbreak — has so far held back on reintroducing restrictions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmity Peskov said on Wed­ne­s­day lockdowns would be “an absolutely undesirable scenario for any region”.

He also poured cold water on any nationwide measures saying regions were “taking action individually”.

In the capital, authorities say that the highly contagious Delta variant now accounts for all of the cases.

Speaking at a government meeting on Tuesday, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said his city was “far from peak numbers” and the growing infections are largely linked to high detection rates.

Two thirds of Moscow’s hospital beds for coronavirus patients are currently occupied, he said.

Dmitry Rozov, who works at an insurance company, said in Moscow he believes authorities are “doing their best”. “My colleagues and people I know who got Covid, they were all given the help they needed,” the 47-year-old said.

Maria Mayorova, a photographer in the capital, said she wasn’t concerned by the growing numbers of cases and deaths. “I’m not afraid, and people close to me aren’t afraid either, even though some of them have had Covid,” the 23-year-old said.

The new deaths bring Russia’s total fatalities from coronavirus to 212,625 — the highest toll in Europe.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2021