MOSCOW—Russia’s daily COVID-19 deaths hit a new record of 819 on Saturday, a day after Moscow’s health department reported the highest number of monthly deaths in the city since the start of the pandemic. Russia’s daily coronavirus deaths are on the rise after infections peaked in July. Authorities blame the infectious Delta variant and a slow vaccination rate. Moscow said late on Friday that the mortality rate in the city in July was 70 percent higher than before the pandemic in 2019 and 60 percent higher than in the same month last year. A total of 17,237 deaths in Moscow in July is the highest monthly death toll since the pandemic began. Most of the excess deaths were caused by the coronavirus outbreak, the Moscow health department said. “The dynamics is linked to the sharp rise of infections due to the spread of a new strain of the coronavirus in …