Poll: One in three Russian medics say they've been told to doctor COVID-19 data

More than one-third of the respondents said they had been instructed to label pneumonia caused by Covid-19 as a different disease.

“This practice lets one adjust the incidence and mortality rates,” the outlet wrote.

Russia has the world’s second-highest number of coronavirus cases with 326,448 as of Thursday, and a death rate of 1.88 per 100,000 Russians. In the United States, that figure is 27.61 per 100,000 Americans, while Britain’s death rate sits at 52.45 per 100,000 people.

Moscow civil registry data showed 18% more fatalities in April 2020 than the average April mortality total over the past decade. Facing the suggestion that the excess deaths could be linked to Covid-19, city health officials said 60% of its coronavirus patients died from vascular accidents, malignant diseases, organ failure and incurable deadly diseases.