In May, 15,713 people died in Moscow, according to the Health Ministry. This is 58% higher than the average death rate for the same month over the past three years.
Excess mortality in May was 5799 cases, according to the Moscow authorities. Excess mortality refers to the increase in the number of deaths compared with the average mortality rate for the same period in previous years. This figure may include not only Covid-19 cases, but also people who may have died due to indirect effects of the pandemic (such as hospital overcrowding).
At the same time, Covid-19 was the main or concomitant cause of death in 5260 cases. This means that 92% of the excess mortality in May is attributed to the coronavirus, concludes the Ministry of Health. Coronavirus was the main cause of death for 2757 people. “We also included in the COVID cases those cases where individuals had a negative test (both during their lifetime and posthumously), but the pathological and clinical findings indicated that even with a negative result, it was likely that the cause of death was the coronavirus. In Moscow, there were 433 such cases in May,” the release said.
In May, it was also noted that 2503 people died of other causes but had a positive Covid-19 test. They were also included in the statistics of Covid-19-related deaths because “the coronavirus aggravates other diseases that can lead to death,” according to the Ministry of Health.
On June 3, the authorities of St. Petersburg released mortality data for May. According to the local committee of the civil registry office, 6,427 people died in the city in May. This is 28% higher than the average mortality rate for the same month in 2011-2019. The number of deaths in May was also higher than in any other month during those years.
At the same time, St. Petersburg does not conduct a detailed analysis of excess mortality, as does the Moscow Health Department. According to data as of June 10, 482 people died of coronavirus in St. Petersburg. In addition, only in May, excess mortality compared to the average level in 2011-2019 amounted to 1.4 thousand people.
Moscow authorities have for the first time counted the death rate for April. Official data initially showed that 642 people died from coronavirus in the capital during this month. At the same time, the excess mortality compared to the average for the past 10 years in April amounted to about 2 thousand deaths. Experts and journalists have tried to explain this discrepancy and find out what caused the death of another 1.4 thousand people. The Russian authorities and Moscow have denied all accusations of data manipulation.
At the end of May, the Moscow authorities announced that they had recalculated the mortality rate according to the recommendations of the World Health Organization. In April, 636 people with a positive test result died directly from Covid-19, according to the deputy health minister. In addition, there were 169 deaths with a negative test result where the primary cause was Covid-19, but confirmed after autopsy. Another 756 people with a positive test died of other causes in April. These were also attributed to Covid-19-related mortality. As a result, the number of deaths related to Covid-19 in Moscow reached 1561 cases by the end of April.