Russia for 1st time in July registers fewer than 23,000 daily infections

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - Russia, for the first time since the beginning of July, has registered fewer than 23,000 daily coronavirus cases on Wednesday.

According to the country's coronavirus emergency task force, 22,420 people contracted the virus over the last 24 hours, taking the tally to 6.19 million and active infections to 491,525.

Over the same period, fatalities went up by 798, taking the death toll to 156,178 while recoveries increased by 20,579 to reach 5.54 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 has been vaccinated against the disease.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 4.17 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 195 million cases reported, according to the US' Johns Hopkins University.