Chat detected, Russian governor tells staff to change data about Coronavirus

As foreign media reports report, the census, published in anonymous social media channels Monday morning, showed a discussion between Artamonov and his subordinates.

As stated further, the governor was trying to convince the staff to change the numbers, saying, your <x0 digits must be changed; otherwise people will think badly of our region”.

During the two-minute conversation, Artamonov said that they must correct this, to convince Moscow” and “not to endanger the” region.

Recently, Artamonov confirmed the authenticity of the census, but insisted that it was misinterpreted.

The conversation was not an attempt to underestimate numbers, he said.

The governor confirmed it was an attempt to correct double reporting on test results.

According to official data, 1.696 patients COVID-19 were registered in the region of Russian Lipetsk on May 25th, with 539 healed, while five patients died of the virus. About 63 new cases were discovered in the last 24 hours.

While Russia announced on Tuesday 174 new deaths from coronavirus in the past 24 hours, a record daily increase, increasing the country's official number of deaths to 3.807.

Russia has recorded far less deaths than other countries with major explosions, but critics have cast doubts on the low rate of official mortality and accused authorities of low reporting to play on the scale of the crisis.

Russian health officials say that one of the reasons the count is lower than in the United States and parts of Western Europe is that only the deaths caused directly by the virus are involved.