Daily virus deaths hit new high in Russia
Russia registered 491 more fatalities from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, marking the country's highest single-day death toll from the disease so far.
An additional 24,326 cases of COVID-19 were also confirmed nationwide, down from the previous day's peak of 25,173 newly diagnosed infections. The cumulative total now stands at 2,138,828 confirmed cases, including 37,031 deaths, according to Russia's coronavirus response headquarters.
Russia has seen a resurgence in COVID-19 infections in recent weeks, with multiple back-to-back days of record-high deaths and cases. The Eastern European nation of 145 million people has the fifth-highest tally of confirmed cases in the world, behind only the United States, India, Brazil and France, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said Tuesday that a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign is expected to begin next year, according to the Interfax news agency. She noted that immunization will be voluntary.
More than 2 million doses of Sputnik V, a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Russian Ministry of Health's Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, will be produced by the end of the year, Golikova said.
ABC News' Alina Lobzina contributed to this report.