In a shocking revelation, Russian health authorities, on December 28, said that country’s death toll was three times higher than what was previously reported. While President Vladimir Putin had long boasted about the country’s low COVID-19 death toll, experts have constantly argued that the majority of deaths were caused by the respiratory infection. However, health officials have now admitted that over 186,000 deaths were caused by COVID-19 alone nixing comparatively low numbers, which were reported only when coronavirus was found to be the main cause of death.
As per the Rosstat statistics agency, the number of deaths from all causes recorded between January and November had risen by 229,700 compared with the previous year. Speaking about the same, Tatiana Golikova, deputy Prime minister reportedly admitted that more than 81 per cent of this spike, that is 186,000, in mortality was due to COVID-19. According to previous records by Russian Heath Ministry, as many as 3,047,335 people have contracted COVID-19 in Russia while only 54,559 people had lost their lives.