The Russian capital has brought in its strictest lockdown measures since June 2020 as hospitals confront a rising wave of coronavirus cases that has sent one-day pandemic deaths to record highs, Reuters reports.

The partial lockdown, in which only essential shops like pharmacies and supermarkets are allowed to remain open, while schools and state kindergartens are shut, comes ahead of a nationwide week-long workplace shutdown from October 30.

Moscow's residents are allowed to leave their homes freely unlike the lockdown of summer 2020, but the new measures point to rising concern among officials over record numbers of deaths that the Kremlin has blamed on the slow vaccination rate.