MOSCOW, July 25. /TASS/. Russia’s weekly tally of new coronavirus cases has decreased for the first time since early May, according to TASS calculations on the basis of the data from the national anti-coronavirus crisis center.

Mortality however stays at a high level, with the weekly death toll reaching the all-time high for the fifth week in a row.

Coronavirus incidence

For the first time since early May, Russia reported less new cases than over the previous week - 168,408 versus 174,800, or a 3.7% decrease.

The overall COVID-19 tally, according to the crisis center, stands at 6,126,541, or some 4.2% of the population.

The incidence rate is demonstrating downwards tendencies: whereas last Sunday it was 17.1 cases a day per 100,000 population, this Sunday it is less than 16.5.

The effective reproduction number (Rt), or the average number of people who become infected by an infectious person, went down in the past seven days from 1.02 to 0.99 and has been staying below 1 for the sixth day in a row.

Recoveries

The number of recoveries is growing, with 149,403 patients recovering from COVID-19 in a period from July 19 to 25 versus 141,012 on the previous week.

In all, as many as 5,490,634 people have recovered from the coronavirus infection in Russia, or 89.6% of the cases. The figure has not changed since last week.

The number of the so-called active cases, or the number of patients currently undergoing treatment, keeps on growing, but the growth has somewhat slowed down. It increased by 13,550 cases over the past week (by 28,371 on the previous week) to reach 482,033, a record high since January 29.

Deaths

The death toll from the coronavirus infection in Russia is still high, with more than 700 fatalities a day reported for 20 days in a row.

The crisis center reported 5,455 coronavirus-related deaths in a period from July 19 to 25, or by 0.7% up on the previous maximal level. However, the growth has visibly slowed down, as last week’s death toll was up by 6.7% on the preceding week and a week before the death toll was up by 9.3%

The coronavirus mortality rate keeps on increasing, being up to 2.51% this week on the last week’s 2.49%

Notably, the crisis center’s data are not complete as they take into account only those cases when coronavirus was the main confirmed cause of death.

Infection centers

The share of Russia’s two biggest cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, in the overall coronavirus tally keeps on going down. This week, it was 31.9% versus 37.7% last week (the figure was more than 60% in June).

Over the past week, Moscow reported 24,943 confirmed cases, or by 26.4% less than on the previous week.

The Moscow region reported 15,203 cases, or down by 13.5% on last week. However, the daily tally has been more than 2,000 in the past several days again.

After a long period of growth, the coronavirus incidence in St. Petersburg is decreasing, but only by one percent (13,565 new cases this week versus 13,707 last week).

In the rest of Russia

The situation is stabilizing across the entire country but for two out of Russia’s eight federal districts, where the weekly tally of coronavirus cases went up by more than ten percent on the previous week. They are the North Caucasian federal district (up by 1.9%) and Southern federal district (up by 10.7%). Last week, the figures were 26.6% and 11.9%, respectively.

The incidence growth was 7.7% in the Volga federal district (11% last week), 5.4% in the Siberian federal district (16.1% last week), five percent in the Urals federal district (20.8% last week), and 1.7% in the Far Eastern federal district.

The weekly tally decreased by 1.1% in the Northwestern federal district for the first time over a long period of time, and by as many as 15.2% - in the Central federal district.

According to TASS, calculations, the incidence growth rate exceeds ten percent in less than 20 out of Russia’s 85 regions and is more than 20% only in the Nenets autonomous area, in the Republic of Adygea, in the Astrakhan region, the Jewish autonomous region, and in Chukotka.