Russia's COVID-19 cases top 300,000

Russia confirmed 8,764 new coronavirus infections Wednesday, bringing the country's official number of cases to 308,705.

On Sunday, the head of Russia's public health watchdog, Anna Popova, said the growth of new coronavirus cases in Russia is stabilizing.

Russia is the second most-affected country in terms of infections.

A record 135 people have died over the past 24 hours, bringing the total toll to 2,972 — a rate considerably lower than in many other countries hit hard by the pandemic.

Russia began easing nation-wide lockdown restrictions last week and announced the national football league would restart in late June.

Authorities also say that since the virus came later to Russia, there was more time to prepare hospital beds and launch wide-scale testing to slow the spread.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) emerged in late 2019 in China's Hubei province, and the virus has spread to 212 countries and territories since then.

To date, COVID-19 cases surpassed 5,000,000 globally, resulting in more than 1,970,000 recoveries and over 325,000 deaths.