E-Paper
On claims of underreporting Covid-19 deaths, comeback from Russia
Russia as of Thursday had 2,52,245 confirmed coronavirus infections and 2,305 deaths. hat put it behind only the United States in the number of infections, but 18th in the world in total deaths.
Russia has lashed out at news reports which said that the country is underreporting (by as much as 60 per cent) the number of fatalities due to coronavirus disease Covid-19.
Articles in New York Times and Financial Times reported that Russia’s coronavirus death toll could be much higher than government officials are saying. The articles said that they were based on a spike in total mortality rates reported by officials in Moscow, who said the capital registered about 1,800 deaths more in April 2020 than the monthly average.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused the two US-based publications of spreading “disinformation”.
Russian officials have so far reported 642 deaths in April.
Authorities say they are only counting deaths that are caused directly by the coronavirus and that since the pandemic came later to Russia, it was able to learn lessons from the experiences of western Europe.
Russia as of Thursday had 2,52,245 confirmed coronavirus infections and 2,305 deaths. That put it behind only the United States in the number of infections, but 18th in the world in total deaths and 58th in deaths per million inhabitants.
How Russia counts
Some countries count everyone who died while infected in their total number of fatalities, others include cases where the virus is suspected to have played a role and some only count deaths directly caused by complications from the virus.
Russia is on the conservative end of the scale, attributing fatalities to the coronavirus only when a death can be directly linked, most often through pneumonia.
“If someone dies of a heart attack but has been diagnosed with Covid-19, the official cause of death will be heart attack,” said Sergei Timonin, a demographer from Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.
Russia has one of the highest coronavirus testing rates in the world, with some six million carried out so far.
The New York Times, meanwhile, said that its report was accurate because it was based on data released by an official state agency.
But following the foreign ministry statement, some Russian lawmakers demanded that reporters from the newspapers be stripped of their accreditation, effectively banning them from working in the country.
