Russia announced on Thursday May 7 that it had recorded a new record of 11,231 infections with the new coronavirus, while mortality still seems to remain low, with 88 deaths in 24 hours bringing the total to 1625.
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With now 177,160 cases recorded, Russia doubles France to rank 4th in Europe and 5th in the world in number of infections, according to the count established by AFP.
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The surge in the number of contaminations in the past week can be explained, according to the authorities, by the multiplication of screening tests - 4.8 million according to the Thursday count - which makes it possible to detect asymptomatic cases in particular and which are not necessarily counted in other countries due to lack of access to tests. In terms of new daily contamination, Russia ranks behind the United States, which currently registers between 20 and 25,000 cases on average each day, and just ahead of Brazil, which has recorded 10,503 cases in the last 24 hours.
Truncated statistics?
With 1,625 deaths, Russia remains very far from the mortality levels recorded in France (more than 25,000 deaths for 174,000 cases) and even less affected than Germany, which with a little more than 7,000 deaths for 166,000 patients is considered to be a country with a particularly effective response to the pandemic.
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Experts suspect however that the Russian statistics are truncated, and that deaths due to Covid-19 could be attributed to other causes. In addition to its screening policy, Moscow explains its low mortality by a series of health measures taken very early in the crisis, such as the closing of borders and the confinement of populations deemed most at risk, such as the elderly.
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