Moscow's Covid-19 cases three times the official tally, says mayor

Russia surged up the global rankings with the largest single-day rise making it the fifth hardest-hit country in the world on Thursday

A man shows a police officer his digital ID to be allowed out during a coronavirus lockdown in central Moscow on May 6, 2020. AFP

Moscow has nearly 300,000 coronavirus cases, nearly triple the number officially reported, the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Thursday.

Officially the city has just 92,676 cases of the novel coronavirus and the nationwide tally is at 177,160. However, Mr Sobyanin told the Tass news agency that the real number is more than three times this tally.

The number of cases nationally surged by 11,231 in the 24 hours to noon on Thursday in the largest single-day rise put Russia at number five on the list of hardest-hit countries by cases. Russia has now officially overtaken both France and Germany in terms of confirmed cases.

More than half of all cases and deaths are in Moscow, the epicentre of Russia's outbreak, which on Thursday reported a record overnight increase of 6,703 new cases.

Russia's official death toll, which remains far lower than in many countries, rose to 1,625 after 88 people died overnight, the task force said.

Coronavirus around the world 

Mary Luz Hernandez, 34, a professional seamstress, holds up her spray gun to offer passing cars her disinfecting service, amid the spread of the new coronavirus in Bogota, Colombia. AP Photo

Maria Figueroa attempts to send pictures of her sons’ homework back to their teachers, from the roof of her apartment in the Catia slum of Caracas, Venezuela. AP Photo

Waiters in protective gear carry food at a restaurant which is testing servers providing drinks and food to models pretending to be clients in a safe "quarantine greenhouses" in which guests can dine in Amsterdam, Netherlands. REUTERS

People stand on social-distancing markers at a Mercedes car dealer in Brussels, Belgium. REUTERS

Red Cross volunteers walk in a street during operations in the French capital Paris. AFP

Lillian sweeping the empty streets of the CBD in Nairobi. AFP

Red Cross volunteers carry a pregnant woman, as part of the Red Cross operation in Paris. AFP

A man scoops with his bare hands some rice that fell from food parcels at the Kwa Mai Mai area of the Johannesburg CBD. AFP

A nurse tends to a crying newborn wearing a face shield in Hanoi. AFP

US Vice President Mike Pence stands among television soundmen as he listens to Donald Trump speak in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington. REUTERS

US President Donald Trump displays a proclamation in honour of National Nurses Day in the Oval Office at the White House. Reuters

New York City Police officers wake up a passenger on the subway. Reuters

A man wearing a face mask uses exercise equipment at a public park in Beijing. AP Photo

Seen through a bridge glass panel covered in graffiti a man wearing a face mask walks in Sarajevo, Bosnia. AP Photo

Mr Sobyanin said on Wednesday that confirmed cases were rising in the capital because authorities had sharply increased testing and that the situation had actually somewhat stabilised.

Russia says it has carried out more than 4.8 million coronavirus tests.

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday backed a plan put forward by Mr Sobyanin to gradually begin lifting some lockdown restrictions after May 12, allowing industrial facilities to begin working.

Moscow and other Russian regions are in their sixth week of a lockdown.

The capital's residents have been told to stay at home except in certain circumstances such as going out to buy food and medicine. They must obtain a digital permit to travel anywhere by public or private transport.

Russia's relatively low death rate has prompted some Kremlin critics to suggest the authorities may be covering up the real toll of the outbreak by failing to correctly identify coronavirus deaths as such.

The authorities deny allegations they are covering up the extend of the virus, pointing out that Russia's outbreak began later than in many other countries and this allowed it to better prepare for the pandemic.

Russia now has the fifth-largest number of cases in the world, according to a tally kept by the John Hopkins University in the United States.