Record coronavirus deaths in Moscow due to Delta variant | This Sunday, 144 deaths were recorded in the Russian capital, the highest number since March 2020

Authorities in Moscow recorded 144 deaths from the coronavirus on Sunday, the highest daily death toll in the Russian capital since March 2020. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin admitted that the Delta variant, which has an incubation period of a few days, is behind the current rebound. The effects of this variant, particularly contagious in unvaccinated people, force the authorities to redouble their efforts to convince their citizens to be vaccinated: to this end, in Moscow and other parts of the country vaccination was made compulsory for workers in the service sector.

“To stop the pandemic, one thing is needed: rapid and large-scale vaccinations. No one has invented another solution”, assured the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin. Faced with the worrying epidemic of covid-19, the government of the Russian capital restrictions reintroduced such as compulsory teleworking or the creation of a health pass for those who go to restaurants. Additionally, hospitals will turn away patients seeking elective surgeries. For the time being the possibility of moving towards strict confinement is not considered.

According to Sobianin, nearly two thousand people are hospitalized daily for covid-19 and of the 20,000 beds available, 14,000 are currently occupied. In addition, the mayor of Moscow admitted that the workload in the city’s hospitals has doubled. “It’s a lot”Said in a television interview Sobianin, who has been trying for weeks to sensitize the population to go to be vaccinated in approved centers.

Even if Russian President Vladimir Putin is against compulsory vaccinationSobianin made vaccination compulsory for at least 60 percent of service workers in mid-June, an example that many Russian regions are following.

Several people were arrested in Moscow on Saturday during a demonstration against compulsory vaccination called by the Communist Party. According to private polls, only one in five Russians supports this option. According to the figures managed by the Ministry of Health, about 21 million of a total of 146 million Russians received the first dose of the vaccine, a figure considered too low to achieve collective immunity this year.

All the more so if we take into account the expansion of the Delta variant, considered the most contagious of those detected so far and present in at least 85 countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) . Russia already has 5,451,291 infections, a figure that places it fifth in the world behind the United States, India, Brazil and France. It also adds 133,282 deaths from the coronavirus, although independent sources are multiplying the official figures by two and three.