In Russia’s Dagestan region, the official coronavirus figures started to seem suspicious to residents back in April. The mountainous republic in the North Caucasus region along the Caspian Sea was reporting just two to three fatalities per day from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at the time. That didn’t add up when a single village might hold five funerals in one afternoon.

Dagestan’s officials eventually acknowledged that the real number of coronavirus cases and deaths was probably much higher. And, in the process, Dagestan became a point of reference for questions on the overall tallies in Russia, which reports the world’s fourth-largest number of confirmed cases but a mortality rate that is about a fifth that of U.S. per capita figures, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
For the Kremlin, its claims of a low death rate are hailed as a tribute to Russia’s medical system and the leadership of President Vladimir Putin. Any attempts to challenge that narrative — such as whether coronavirus cases and deaths are often misclassified — are quickly slapped down by Putin’s government.

But Dagestan’s recount is much harder for Moscow to dismiss.

Responding to local pressure, Dagestan’s health minister acknowledged in a May 16 interview with a local blogger that the official coronavirus numbers were likely a sliver of the reality. At the time, Dagestan was reporting about 3,500 confirmed cases and just 29 deaths.

The health minister, Dzhamaludin Gadzhiibragimov, then said the total number of people infected with coronavirus and community-acquired pneumonia exceeded 13,000, with more than 650 dead.

The reason for the disconnect: Dagestan was counting coronavirus and pneumonia separately because of insufficient testing capacity. (More than two months after Gadzhiibragimov’s admission, Dagestan’s official numbers — 445 deaths and approximately 9,300 cases — are still lower than those he first quoted.)

“If you go to dinner with 10 people in Dagestan now, probably seven would say they had coronavirus,” said Ziyatdin Uvaisov, the head of Patient Monitor, a Dagestan-based nongovernmental aid organization.

Russia has lifted most of its coronavirus-related restrictions, saying its infection curve has peaked. In a meeting with government health officials Wednesday, Putin said “the number of new cases is now practically two times lower than what it was during the peak period in May” but cautioned that “the situation remains difficult; it could swing in any direction.”