The government coronavirus taskforce also confirmed 21,042 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. File photo

Russia reports 669 deaths from the virus over the past 24 hours, the highest daily tally in the pandemic. The previous record, of 652 new deaths, was registered on Tuesday.

The government coronavirus taskforce also confirmed 21,042 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, including 5,823 in Moscow. That pushed the national case total to 5,514,599 since the start of the outbreak.

The country is grappling with a spike of infections spurred by the highly infectious Delta variant and sluggish vaccination rates.

READ MORE

India adds 45,951 new coronavirus cases, 817 deaths

UAE reports 2184 new virus cases 5 deaths

Russia has struggled to cope with a surge in infections and deaths in recent weeks that comes amid rather slow vaccination rates.

The country is grappling with a spike of infections spurred by the highly infectious Delta variant.

One of the pandemic hotspots is the city of Saint Petersburg, which is due to host a Euro 2020 quarter-final on Friday in front of thousands of fans, many of them flying in from abroad for the match.

Russian officials have blamed the surge, which started in early June, on Russians’ lax attitude toward taking necessary precautions, growing prevalence of more infectious variants and laggard vaccination rates. Although Russia was among the first countries to announce and deploy a coronavirus vaccine, just over 15% of the population has received at least one shot.

Russia’s coronavirus task force has reported more than 5.5 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the pandemic and 135,214 deaths.