MOSCOW, Dec 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Coronavirus deaths in Eastern Europe topped 1 million on Thursday as the Omicron variant threatened to batter the region.
Three out of the five countries reporting the highest number of daily deaths in Europe are from the East, including Russia, Poland and Ukraine, data through Thursday showed.
Eastern Europe makes up 39 per cent of the region’s population and has reported more than half the total COVID-related deaths in Europe, according to a tally.
The death toll in Eastern Europe reached 1,045,454 on Thursday, compared with 1,873,253 in all of Europe.
The region includes Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.
Relatively few cases of Omicron have been detected in Eastern Europe, in contrast with Western Europe where daily cases have broken records.
Poland reported 794 COVID-related deaths on Wednesday. It was a record high for the fourth wave of the pandemic, although the figure may have been inflated by delayed reporting due to Christmas.
Dr Michal Sutkowski, spokesperson for the College of Family Physicians in Poland, blamed the rising toll in Poland on an overloaded healthcare system, a lack of knowledge and the relative reluctance to get vaccinated compared to the West, including for the most vulnerable groups.
“Unfortunately, the Omicron is approaching. It will come sooner or later … and then the number of deaths might increase dramatically, because, unfortunately, there will be an effect of scale,” he said, adding that he had noticed a growing interest in vaccinations in recent weeks.
Russia has overtaken Brazil to have the world’s second-highest death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic, behind the United States, data from Russia’s state statistics service showed on Thursday.
The statistics service, Rosstat, said 87,527 people had died from coronavirus-related causes in November, making it the deadliest month in Russia since the start of the pandemic.
Globally the pandemic has killed more than 5.7 million people.
Russia has vaccinated almost 55 per cent of its population with at least one shot, according to health minister Mikhail Murashko.
The Czech Republic and Hungary top the region’s vaccination rates with nearly 64 per cent of both countries’ total population having received at least one shot. Ukraine has the lowest rate with nearly 33 per cent of its residents receiving a single dose, according to Our World in Data. — NNN-AGENCIES
