Russia battered by deadly COVID 3rd wave

Russia is enduring a devastating third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, registering record numbers of daily virus deaths many days for the past month as the virus rages in the country where there are few quarantine restrictions in place and much of the population is reluctant to get vaccinated.

In many parts of the country doctors have said hospitals have been overflowing for almost a month, placing huge strain on medical workers already battered by a year and a half of the pandemic.

In the late spring, authorities had hailed a supposed end to the worst of the pandemic, following a grim winter that saw Russia reach the highest death toll per capita among developing nations.

"Compared with the second wave, it's much tougher," said Viktoria, an ambulance work in the Leningrad region, who asked to withhold her last name because she did not have permission to speak publicly.

Calculations of so-called "excess deaths" from publicly available mortality data -- considered internationally as the best way of assessing the pandemic's true toll -- show that Russia has recorded nearly 550,000 more deaths than in an average year between June 2021 and the start of the pandemic.

It also does not take into account June and July, which have been the deadliest months of the third wave for the country.

The wave of infections and deaths has hit as Russia had erected few defences to stem it.

By June, authorities had lifted most of the limited restrictions that had been in place and spoke of an end to the pandemic in sight.

The wave flooded hospitals in many regions from the start of June.

Some doctors and experts blamed the scale of the third wave on the messaging from authorities that the pandemic was essentially over and abandoning restrictions.

Experts have in part blamed that reluctance on authorities' refusal to enforce tough restrictions and mixed messages suggesting that the situation in Russia was not so bad and underplaying the real number of deaths.

As the third wave hit, authorities have launched a drive to try to overcome the vaccine hesitancy.

That puts in doubt whether Russia will reach a sufficient level of vaccination by the autumn to head off a deadly fourth wave.

He said both authorities and citizens needed to accept more restrictions to do so, alongside vaccination