A Russian woman is given a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in Zagreb, Croatia.
About 83 percent of hospital beds designated for COVID-19 patients are full, Russian officials said on Wednesday, as daily highs of new infections and deaths remain at an all-time high.
Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova told a government meeting on Wednesday that 82.8 percent of the 301,500 hospital beds reserved for coronavirus patients were filled as of Tuesday morning.
“So far we cannot say with confidence that the situation has stabilized and the spread of infection has reduced,” Golikova, who runs the country’s state coronavirus task force, told a government meeting on Wednesday.
The task force on Wednesday recorded another record for coronavirus deaths – 1,239, up from Tuesday’s record 1,211. Officials also reported 38,058 new infections. Nearly 40,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths have been recorded every day since the end of October.
Russia’s autumn increase in infections and deaths comes amid low vaccination rates, public attitudes toward precautions, and the government’s reluctance to toughen restrictions.
Less than 40 percent of Russia’s nearly 146 million people have been fully vaccinated, even though Russia approved a home-grown COVID-19 vaccine months before most countries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last month ordered many Russians to be off work between October 30 and November 7.
They authorized regional governments to increase the number of non-working days if necessary, but only five Russian regions have done so.
Other areas restrict access to restaurants, theaters and other public places only to people who have been fully vaccinated, have recovered from COVID-19 within the past six months or have tested negative in the past 72 hours .
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this week that it remained to be seen whether non-working periods were paying off.
On Tuesday, authorities in St Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city and the second hardest-hit city in Russian regions, made vaccinations mandatory for people over the age of 60 and those with chronic diseases.
Petersburg residents who fall into either of the two categories must receive their first shot before December 15 and complete their vaccination before January 15.
Russia currently has four domestically developed vaccines, the main ones being Sputnik V and its one-dose version, Sputnik Lite.
Sputnik V was approved last August with much fanfare in the country and criticism abroad, as it had only been tested on a few dozen people at the time.
But a study published in February in the British medical journal The Lancet showed that Sputnik V is 91 percent effective and prevents vaccinated individuals from becoming seriously ill with COVID-19.
Two other Russian vaccines, Epivacorona and Kovivac, have also received regulatory approval before completing late-stage trials that experts say are necessary to ensure their safety and effectiveness, in line with established scientific protocols.
The developers of both are yet to release the results of these tests.
In total, Russia’s state coronavirus task force has reported 8.9 million confirmed infections and 250,454 deaths – the most so far in Europe, which some experts consider an undercount.
The report from Russia’s own statistical service Rosstat, which retrospectively tallies deaths linked to the coronavirus, suggests the death toll is much higher: 462,000 people died with COVID-19 between April 2020 and September this year.
Russian officials have said the task force only includes deaths for which COVID-19 was the main cause and uses data from medical facilities.
Rosstat uses broad criteria for counting virus-related deaths and takes its numbers from civil registry offices where deaths are finalized.
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