London, Dec. 31 (BNA): The number of coronavirus deaths in Eastern Europe exceeded one million on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally, as the Omicron variable threatened to hit the region.
Reuters data as of Thursday showed that three out of five countries reporting the highest number of daily deaths in Europe are from the east, including Russia, Poland and Ukraine.
Eastern Europe makes up 39% of the region’s population and has reported more than half of all coronavirus-related deaths in Europe, according to a Reuters tally.
The death toll in Eastern Europe reached 1,045,454 on Thursday, compared to 1,873,253 in all of Europe.
The region includes Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine.
Relatively few cases of Omicron have been detected in Eastern Europe, in contrast to Western Europe where daily cases have broken records.
Poland reported 794 COVID-related deaths on Wednesday. It was a record for the fourth wave of the epidemic, although the number may have been exaggerated due to delays in reporting due to Christmas.
Data from the state statistics service and Reuters calculations showed on Thursday that Russia has overtaken Brazil to become the world’s second-highest death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic after the United States.
The statistics service, Rosstat, said 87,527 people died of coronavirus-related causes in November, making it the deadliest month in Russia since the start of the pandemic. Globally, the pandemic has killed more than 5.7 million people.
Russia has vaccinated nearly 55% of its population with at least one dose, according to Health Minister Mikhail Murashko.
Anna Popova, head of Russia’s state consumer watchdog, has expressed concern about the possible impact of the ten days of the New Year holidays.
The Czech Republic and Hungary lead the region’s vaccination rates with nearly 64% of the total population of the two countries having received at least one injection. Ukraine has the lowest rate with nearly 33% of its population receiving a single dose, according to Our World in Data.
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