The number on confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Russia has surged to 177,160 after a record daily rise in infections, meaning it now has the fifth highest number of registered cases in the world and more cases than in Germany or France.
A total of 11,231 new cases were diagnosed in the last 24 hours. More than half of all cases and deaths are in Moscow, the epicentre of Russia's outbreak, which reported a record overnight increase of 6,703 new cases.
Russia's official death toll, which remains far lower than in many countries, rose to 1,625 after 88 people died overnight, the taskforce said.
Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow's mayor, said that confirmed cases were rising in the capital because authorities had sharply increased testing and that the