MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia on Saturday reported nearly 24,000 new COVID-19 cases and a repeat all-time high in the number of daily deaths, at 799, but some officials suggested that infections, especially in Moscow, may have peaked.
Russia has been in the grip of a surge in cases that authorities blame on the more contagious Delta variant.
The coronavirus task force confirmed 23,947 new COVID-19 infections across the country in the last 24 hours, down around 5% on the previous week. In Moscow, 3,376 new cases were reported, down 26%.
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said authorities hoped that infections in the Russian capital had now peaked, the TASS news agency reported.
“On the whole, we can see that there is a decrease in the incidence of disease,” he was quoted on Friday as saying. “This, of course, is positive, it means that we have passed these peaks, and I hope that there will be further improvement.”
The total number of cases recorded since the pandemic began in early 2020 in Russia stood at 6,102,469 on Saturday, out of a total population of around 144 million.
The national death toll linked to COVID-19 rose to 153,095, with the 799 fatalities recorded on Saturday the highest since July 16, which marked an all-time high.
The federal statistics agency has kept a separate count and said Russia recorded around 290,000 deaths related to COVID-19 from April 2020 to May 2021.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; Writing by Polina Ivanova;Editing by Alison Williams and Gareth Jones)
