Russia on Thursday reported 7,790 new cases of the coronavirus, its lowest daily rise in infections in six weeks, bringing the nationwide total to 561,091.
Russia's coronavirus crisis response center said 182 people had died in the last 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 7,660 since the crisis began.
Nearly 500 Russian medics who tested positive for the coronavirus have died, the head of the state health watchdog said Thursday, a far higher figure than given before.
"489 – that is medics, unfortunately, we have lost almost 500 of our colleagues," the Roszdravnadzor watchdog's chief, Alla Samoilova, said at an online conference, TASS state news agency reported.
Previously a Health Ministry official on May 26 gave a confirmed death toll of 101.
The new toll is even higher than that given by an independent website set up by medics where colleagues report deaths, the Remembrance List, which lists 444 deaths.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged problems in supplying personal protective equipment to medics.
Samoilova also cited this as a factor.
"If I'm being honest, there were issues at the start, there were some shortcomings," she said.
She added, however, that "today we practically don't receive complaints ... that medics aren't supplied with PPE or don't get tested (for the virus)."
Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, now head of the audit chamber, said this month that "medicine is significantly underfunded."
