Moscow set a new single-day record of more than 8,000 coronavirus cases as national deaths and infections shattered previous records Thursday, The Moscow Times reports.
The latest record comes as Moscow prepares to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s without its traditional mass festivities due to the pandemic.
Of the 8,203 newly infected residents in the Russian capital, official data says that 1,772 have been hospitalized. Moscow’s Covid-19 task force said more patients have been discharged than admitted to hospitals over the past 24 hours.
The city’s task force said around two out of five newly infected Muscovites are aged 18-45, with almost one-third in the 46-65 age group.
Russia’s national Covid-19 task force on Thursday also confirmed new record-breaking numbers with 29,935 coronavirus cases and 635 deaths.
The total national caseload is nearing 3 million, the world’s fourth-highest count, and official death numbers stand at more than 53,000, the ninth-highest in the world.
Russia set its previous single-day high of 29,039 infections on Dec. 6 and hit its previous fatality record of 613 deaths on Dec. 11.
Infection rates have nearly tripled from 6.1 per 100,000 people in October to 18.2 per 100,000 in the first week of December, officials say. Media reports have suggested that Russia has slowed Covid-19 testing this month despite its surge in infections and mass rollout of the domestic Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.
Since the start of the record-breaking second wave this fall, Covid-19 has strained the regions’ poorly funded healthcare systems, with severe shortages of hospital beds, staff and medicine reported outside Moscow.
