
Russia on Friday set a grim milestone by recording a huge daily rise in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases. This comes in the wake of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announcing he had been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus and was temporarily stepping down to recover.
The nationwide case tally rose by 7,933 cases in 24 hours and now stands at 1,14,431.
It said 96 people diagnosed with COVID-19 had died in the last 24 hours. That raised the official overall death toll up to 1,169.
In Mishustin's absence, first Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov will serve as acting prime minister.
Mishustin, who had been one of the main coordinators of Russia's response to the new coronavirus, was the first high-ranking official to publically say they have the virus.
Russia's cases began to sharply rise last month, and on Thursday surged past the 1,00,000 mark. It has, however, so far recorded far fewer deaths than many of the hardest-hit countries.
Russia has been on lockdown since Putin announced the closure of most public spaces in late March to limit the scope for the virus to spread.