Russia’s Excess Death Toll Hits 600K
A Delta variant sweeping across the country and low vaccination rates resulted in more than 2,000 extra fatalities a day during July.
By Jake Cordell
Updated: Aug. 27, 2021
Russia recorded almost 64,000 excess fatalities in July as a
brutal third wave of the coronavirus swept across the country, encountering an under-vaccinated population and overwhelmed hospitals in its path.
In a report released late Friday evening, the Rosstat state statistics service said
215,000 people died in July 2021 — more than in any single pre-pandemic month for at least the last 15 years.
The sharp jump in fatalities — 42% more than in July 2019 — takes
Russia’s total excess death toll since the beginning of the pandemic to 596,000, according to The Moscow Times’ analysis.
Excess deaths — which compares the number of recorded fatalities from all causes with what would be expected in a normal period — is seen by demographers and statisticians as the gold-standard method for measuring the human toll of the pandemic as it strips out differences in national reporting standards and misattributions.
Excess fatalities
Russia has recorded 596,000 more deaths since the start of the pandemic than during the same months of 2019. Russia has the second-highest number of excess deaths in the world, behind only the U.S., and the fifth-highest once adjusted for population.
Given Russia’s declining mortality rates over the last decade, experts say the
figure of 596,000 could slightly underestimate the number of virus fatalities in reality, because Russia’s mortality rate could have been expected to continue falling.
Russia’s excess death toll continues to differ from the number of official Covid-19 fatalities reported by various government bodies.
Russia was criticized last year for apparent underreporting of coronavirus fatalities, with
excess fatalities coming in up to five times higher than official Covid-19 deaths in some months. In many European countries, official Covid-19 deaths fully account for the observed increase in overall excess fatalities.
In recent months official Covid-19 fatalities have been closer to the scale of the pandemic implied by excess deaths and July saw the highest number of official Covid-19 fatalities since the start of the pandemic.
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