With coronavirus untamed, Russia suffers deadliest September since World War II
- There were 44,265 deaths associated with the coronavirus last month, bringing the pandemic’s total to nearly half a million
- The situation is poised to get worse after record numbers of cases in recent weeks, leading President Vladimir Putin to declare days off nationwide
Russia suffered its deadliest September since World War II, according to figures published on Friday, even before the peak of its current wave of the Covid-19 pandemic forced authorities to order non-working days for the first week of November.
There were 44,265 deaths associated with the virus last month, bringing the pandemic’s total to nearly half a million, according to Federal Statistics Service data published late on Friday. That contributed to the highest number of September fatalities since the war, said Alexei Raksha, a demographer who left the agency last year after a dispute over its coronavirus numbers.
“If the authorities’ approach to fighting Covid-19 doesn’t change radically, we can expect new waves of infections,” Raksha said. “The lockdown should be real, strict and several weeks, like in Latvia, and not ‘non-working days’ at the expense of employers.”
Russia’s average life expectancy has fallen by five years in the last 18 months, to about 69, he estimates.
The latest Covid-19 surge has overloaded hospitals and made several regions, including Moscow, order tougher lockdowns.