Despite drop in daily infections, Russia sees rise in active COVID cases

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) – Although daily cases in Russia have been slowly decreasing in recent weeks, the active cases still continue growing.

On Tuesday, Russia's coronavirus emergency task force reported 23,032 new cases in the last 24 hours, a lowest daily count since June 30.

However, the active cases are nearing half a million as 490,482 patients are being treated for COVID-19 across Russia. Over 6.17 million people have contracted the virus so far.

In addition, the mortality rate remains high as the coronavirus has claimed over 700 lives daily recently. As many as 779 people died of the disease over the past day, raising the nationwide death toll to 155,380.

Over the same period, recoveries went up by 20,116 to reach 5.52 million.

Commenting on the situation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the low level of vaccination prevents coping with the spread of the coronavirus.

"Not so high pace of vaccination is the reason that we cannot yet cope with the spread of COVID-19. Vaccination and only vaccination of a certain number of citizens will allow us to curb this infection," he said.

According to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, the pace of vaccination in Russia has doubled in recent weeks, however, the level of vaccination depends on the region as some have a high level of demand for vaccination, while others do not.

Up to date, over 15% of the Russian population have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

​​​​​​​Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 4.16 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 194 million cases reported, according to the US' Johns Hopkins University.