Russia’s coronavirus infections exceed 8 million

By JIM HEINTZ
Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s total number of coronavirus infections has topped 8 million and the daily infection toll hit a new record. The national coronavirus task force said Monday that 34,325 new infections over the past day raised the pandemic-long total to 8,027,012. That figure represents more than 5% of the population. The task force also said 998 people died of COVID-19 in the previous day. It brings the total number of deaths to 224,310. The death toll is minutely lower than the record 1,002 tallied on Saturday. But it shows the country continuing to struggle with the virus as vaccination rates remain low.