MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/. A total of 12,452 people diagnosed with the coronavirus infection died in Russia in May, Head of Russia’s Federal Statistics Service Rosstat Pavel Malkov said on Friday.

"In May, the coronavirus was the main cause of fatalities in 5,644 cases. This was the confirmed primary cause of death. There are also 1,800 cases where the coronavirus is presumed to be the main cause of death but all the tests have not been completed yet. In another 1,530 cases, other causes of death were reported but the coronavirus had its impact on its approach. Finally, the coronavirus was diagnosed but had no impact on the approach of death in 3,478 cases," the Rosstat head said.

The Rosstat data on the coronavirus will have to be supplemented and specified, Malkov said. "This can be explained by the fact that time is needed to hold all necessary medical tests."

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 12,404,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 557,700 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 7,235,600 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, 713,936 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 489,068 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 11,017 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.