<p>MOSCOW — Russia’s state statistical service says the number of deaths nationwide in the first three months of 2021 was more than 25% higher than the same period a year ago, and it reported thousands more deaths due to COVID-19 in March than tallied by the country’s coronavirus task force.</p>
<p>More than 583,000 people died in January-March of this year, compared with 460,000 for those months in 2020, the Rosstat agency said in a report issued Friday. </p>
<p>The agency did not provide an explanation for the sharply higher death toll, but critics have suggested that Russia underplays the severity of the pandemic in the country. </p>
<p>The national coronavirus task force counted more than 12,300 deaths from COVID-19 in March, but Rosstat gave a substantially higher number. The agency said there were 15,003 deaths that month in which the coronavirus was the leading cause, along with 2,454 cases in which COVID-19 was believed to be the leading cause and 1,401 deaths in which COVID-19 influenced the development of other diseases and accelerated death. </p>
<p>According to the task force, throughout the pandemic 110,502 people have died in Russia of COVID-19 as of Saturday — 392 of them in the past day. The country has recorded more than 4.8 million confirmed cases. </p>
<p>Although Russia has boasted of being the first country to authorize a coronavirus vaccine, the pace of its vaccination program is lagging well behind many other countries.</p>
<p>Only about 8% of residents have gotten at least one shot, while 5% have been fully vaccinated. That puts Russia far behind the United States, where 43% of the population has gotten at least one shot, and the European Union with nearly 27%. </p>
