Russia has admitted its national coronavirus death toll is more than three times higher than previously reported, making it the country with the third-largest number of fatalities.
Key points:
The new figures show more than 186,000 Russians have died from COVID-19
This is up from the 55,265 the country had officially reported
The country's health authorities previously only counted COVID-19 deaths confirmed by autopsy
For months President Vladimir Putin has boasted about Russia's low fatality rate from the virus, saying earlier this month that it had done a "better" job at managing the pandemic than Western countries.
But since early in the pandemic, some Russian experts have said the Government was playing down the country's outbreak.
On Monday local time, Russian officials admitted that was true.
The Rosstat statistics agency said that the number of deaths from all causes recorded between January and November had risen by 229,700 compared to the previous year.
"More than 81 per cent of this increase in mortality over this period is due to COVID," said Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova, meaning that over 186,000 Russians have died from COVID-19. - ABC News.
