Russia's death rate in June rose by 25,000 year on year - Rosstat

MOSCOW. Aug 7 (Interfax) - Russia had 25,000 more deaths in June than in the same month last year, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said.

"In June of 2020 the country registered 162,758 deaths (137,237 in June 2019)," Rosstat stated on Friday.

In the first half-year of 2020, there were 946,539 deaths (918,503 in January-June 2019). In the six-month period of this year the mortality increased by 3.1 per cent in comparison with the same period last year, Rosstat said.

Coronavirus was cited as the main cause of 5,448 deaths in June; a suspected but as yet unconfirmed cause of 1,589 deaths; a factor which exacerbated other illnesses which hastened death in 1,399 cases; and was confirmed but in no way contributed to death of 3,481 coronavirus patients (out of the total of about 12,000).

In June there was a drop in deaths from the coronavirus in the regions which were among the first hit by the epidemic, Rosstat said. Moscow had 1,329 cases where Covid-19 was the main cause of death (a decrease of 42.8% from 2,324 in May). The city's cases where Covid-19 exacerbated other illnesses and led to complications which hastened a patient's death, decreased by 20% from 980 in May to 784 in June.

In June Rosstat also registered a fall in divorces, marriages and births. The natural population decrease stood at 44,261, (265,600 in January-June).

Births fell by 5.4% (681,000 in January-June, including 118,000 in June; 119,000 in June 2019). The death rate rose by 3.1 per cent.

Marriages more than quadrupled from 15,074 in May to 68,408 in June. In three regions the number of marriages exceeded the same indicator for June last year.

Overall, in the first six-month of 2020 the number of marriages dropped by 25% in comparison with the same period last year.

As for divorces, 45,800 were registered in June and 220,700 in January-June, down 25.7% from nearly 297,000 in the same period last year.