MOSCOW - Russia has registered a total of 820,307 COVID-related deaths since the start of the pandemic in the country in April 2020, the state statistics service Rosstat said on Friday.

It said 4,991 people had died of COVID-19 or related causes in June, down from 7,098 in May.

Russia recorded more than 965,000 excess deaths between April 2020 and June 2022 compared with the average mortality in 2015-2019, Reuters calculations showed.

This number decreased in June, because about 9,900 fewer people than average died in that month.

Some epidemiologists say that calculating excess deaths is the best way to assess the true impact of a pandemic.