25/5/20: Russia COVID Data Update

Updating Russia COVID19 charts:

Key takeaways:

1. Death rates remain very low by comparatives with other countries, but rising, albeit slowly.
2. Even with one day ahead for Russian data compared to Brazil data, Brazil has now overtaken Russia in total number of cases (363,211 in Brazil vs 353,427 in Russia, and that does not account for higher rates of testing in Russia) and deaths (22,103 in Brazil against 3,633 in Russia). Even adjusting Russian cases for alleged under-reporting, Russian deaths stand at around 5.450, well below those in Brazil. 

There have been numerous theories advanced by different sources as to the Russian deaths being so low. Some are conspiracy-based, e.g. 'Putin is forcing suppression of real numbers', some are methodological, e.g. Russia is reportedly using much higher rates of autopsies in the case of suspected COVID-linked deaths, allowing them to detect better primary causes of deaths. I do not have any information to confirm or deny any specific source, so no speculating from my end. Hence, I report both adjusted and unadjusted/reported numbers in the second chart above.

Here are the BRIICS comparatives:

And for those interested, comparatives to G7+:

For political reasons - re: lack of civilised discourse being feasible on the topic - I do not run comparatives between Russia and other ex-USSR states.