Russia's daily Covid-19 cases surge to 5-month high

Moscow, June 25 Russia logged 20,182 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, the highest daily increase since January 24, taking the nationwide tally to 5,388,695, the official monitoring and response center said on Thursday.

The national death toll rose by 568 to 131,463 in the past day, while the number of recoveries grew by 13,505 to 4,915,615, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Moscow, Russia's worst-hit region, reported 8,598 new cases, taking the city's total to 1,315,841.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said on Wednesday that the vaccination rate in the country was rising as more than 16 million people had been fully vaccinated and around 20 million others had received one dose.

According to Golikova, there were no cases of the "Delta plus" variant in Russia.