Russia's COVID-19 daily death toll climbs to new pandemic high

MOSCOW: Russia registered a record number of daily COVID-19-related deaths on Friday amid a surge in cases across the world's largest country that the authorities blame on the infectious Delta variant.

The government's coronavirus taskforce said 679 people had died in the last 24 hours, the highest figure confirmed in a single day since the pandemic began. It also reported 23,218 new infections in the last 24 hours, including 6,893 in Moscow.