Russia hits new Covid-19 record; 10 times more than a month ago

Russia is reporting a record daily count of new coronavirus infections, a tenfold spike from a month ago as the highly contagious omicron variant spreads through the country.

The figure of 189,071 new infections released by the state coronavirus task force on Sunday was about 2,800 cases more than the previous day and continued a surge that began in mid-January, when daily new cases were around 17,000.

Although the number of infections has increased dramatically in recent weeks, the task force reported that daily deaths from COVID-19 are holding steady or marginally declining: 661 more deaths were recorded Sunday, compared with 796