Russia hits new COVID-19 record; 10x more than a month ago

By JIM HEINTZ
Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — 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 180,071 infections released by the state coronavirus task force on Sunday was about 2,800 cases more than recorded 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. For the entire course of the pandemic, the task force has reported 12.8 million infections and 335,414 deaths.