The United States, India, Brazil and France lead in terms of the number of registered cases, while the largest number of coronavirus-related deaths was observed in the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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The number of coronavirus cases confirmed all over the world has surpassed 62 million, according to the latest data from the Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center.
As of 04:50 Moscow time on Tuesday (01:50 GMT) , there are 62,147,874 confirmed coronavirus cases in the world. The global death toll from COVID-19 stands at 1,450,326. The number of recovered individuals stands at 339,755,287.
The United States, India and Brazil remain the top three countries in terms of the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases. France comes fourth and Russia is fifth.
Earlier this week, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the US surpassed 13 million. More than 266,000 people have died from the coronavirus infection in the US.
The Serum Institute of India will apply for emergency use license of its coronavirus vaccine Covishield, Adar Poonawalla, the institute's CEO, said at a video press conference on Saturday.
Earlier in the day, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Serum Institute of India and examined its manufacturing facility. Modi and Poonawalla discussed the plan on Covishield vaccine's distribution in India.
"In the next two weeks, we will apply for the emergence use. We will have to wait and see when we get the permission," Poonawalla said.
Poonawalla said Covishield, which is based on the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, would be first distributed in India and then in the countries participating in the WHO-led COVAX facility, mainly African countries. He also offered support to
"The United Kingdom and the European market will be supplied by AstraZeneca company and Oxford. If they need our assistance to expand manufacturing facility, we are always ready to support them," the businessman added.
According to the CEO, the Indian government did not inform him in writing how many vaccine doses it would purchase, but the Health Ministry indicated that the country would need 300-400 million doses by mid-2021. The institute's current manufacturing capacity is 50-60 million doses per month with the outlook to reach 100 million doses by January 2021, the CEO said.
COVAX is a component of the global ACT Accelerator facility whose aim is to bring together and make equitably accessible all global developments in the diagnostics, treatment and vaccines against COVID-19. The COVAX facility is responsible for the equitable access to vaccines both for countries which can afford it and those in need of assistance.
India is underway with clinical trials of three coronavirus vaccines at the moment, with Covishield about to begin phase 3 trials on a par with the ZycovD vaccine by pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila. The COVAXIN vaccine by pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech has already begun phase 3 clinical trials.
Another 72 people have died from the coronavirus disease in the Russian capital over the past 24 hours, the COVID-19 response center said on Saturday.
"In Moscow, 72 patients with confirmed pneumonia diagnosis and positive coronavirus test results died," the center said in an update.
Moscow's cumulative death toll from COVID-19 has now reached 8,828.
Italy has reported 26,323 new cases of coronavirus infection in the past 24 hours, the country's health ministry said.
The death toll has increased by 686, the ministry added.
Japan has recorded 2,684 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, the highest single-day increase since the pandemic started, bringing the country's total tally to 146,214, the NHK broadcaster reported on Saturday.
Of these new cases, 561 infections were confirmed in Tokyo. It comes a day after the capital recorded the highest-ever daily increase of 570 cases.
As many as 440 COVID-19 patients are currently in intensive care units.
The death toll from the disease has increased by 14 over the given period to 2,123, the broadcaster added.
Meanwhile, about 121,000 people have recovered from the disease since the outbreak of the pandemic.
The United States has set a new single-day record for the new cases of the coronavirus, as more than 200,000 infections were registered over the past 24 hours, according to data provided by Johns Hopkins University on Saturday.
The previous record of over 189,000 cases was registered in the US on November 21, according to the New York Times newspaper, citing its calculations.
Over the past day, the US recorded 205,557 COVID-19 cases bringing the country's total tally to over 13.09 million. Meanwhile, the death toll from the disease has increased by 1,404 to 264,866.
As many as 4,947,446 COVID-19 patients have recovered in the United States since the beginning of the outbreak.
The United Kingdom has assigned Nadhim Zahawi as the minister responsible for COVID-19 vaccine deployment, the Prime Minister's Office said on Saturday.
"The Queen has been pleased to approve the appointment of Nadhim Zahawi MP as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care. He remains a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy," the office said.
Zahawi said that he was delighted by the assignment and reaffirmed his commitment to the rapid deployment of COVID-19 vaccines in the UK.
"Delighted to have been asked by @BorisJohnson to become the minister for Covid vaccine deployment. A big responsibility&a big operational challenge but absolutely committed to making sure we can roll out vaccines quickly-saving lives and livelihoods and helping us #buildbackbetter," Zahawi wrote on Twitter.
On Friday, the UK Health Department said that roughly four million doses of vaccine, developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, would be authorized for use in the UK until late December, and the country would receive 40 million vaccines by the end of March.
According to the Department of Health, the UK has confirmed 1,589,301 COVID-19 cases, with 66,713 deaths.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has paid a visit to the Bharat Biotech manufacturing facility, which has developed India's COVAXIN coronavirus vaccine and is underway with phase 3 clinical trials, Bharat Biotech said in a press release on Saturday.
Phase 3 clinical trials of COVAXIN began on Thursday, involving 26,000 volunteer participants across 25 sites in India.
"The prime minister's visit serves as a great inspiration to our team, and further reinforces our commitment towards scientific discovery, solving public health issues, and the nation's fight against COVID-19," the press release read.
The facility belongs to India's high-tech innovation nest called the Genome Valley, located in the southern city of Hyderabad.
Stressing that COVAXIN was underway with the "first, largest, and the ONLY efficacy trial in the developing world," Bharat Biotech also emphasized that the production would be carried out at a Biosafety Level 3 facility, which indicates the second highest level of precautions provided for all parties to the process.
India is underway with clinical trials of three coronavirus vaccines at the moment, with COVAXIN being the only one in phase 3. The ZycovD vaccine by pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila and the ChAdOx1 vaccine by the Serum Institute of India are underway with phase 2 clinical trials.
At the Bharat Biotech facility in Hyderabad, was briefed about their indigenous COVID-19 vaccine. Congratulated the scientists for their progress in the trials so far. Their team is closely working with ICMR to facilitate speedy progress. pic.twitter.com/C6kkfKQlbl
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 28, 2020
New nationwide measures to curb the coronavirus pandemic entered into force in Georgia on Saturday as the country sees a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Georgia has been registering from 3,000 to 4,800 new COVID-19 cases per day over the recent weeks, with the capital of Tbilisi being the epicenter of the outbreak.
Under the new restrictions, operation of restaurants, public transport, shopping malls, markets and gyms will be suspended until 15 January. Only grocery stores, pharmacies, banks, hospitals and beauty salons will work.
Some restrictions will be relaxed during Christmas holidays. In particular, on New Year's Eve, the night curfew, which was introduced in largest cities on 9 November, will be lifted. In addition, all shopping centers and markets will operate throughout Georgia from 24 December to 2 January, and the work of urban and intercity public transport will be restored.
The Los Angeles County is set to toughen coronavirus response measures and introduce a new and safer stay-at-home order for three weeks starting from November 30, the local health authorities said.
The most populous county of the United States reported over 4,500 new COVID-19 cases and 24 related deaths on Friday. The total case count is nearing 390,000 and the average number of daily detected cases is more than 4,750.
"The temporary order will take effect Monday, November 30, 2020 and remain in effect through December 20, 2020," the LA Public Health Department tweeted on Friday.
The new order sets different occupancy limits in shops, gyms, libraries and museums, while restaurants, bars, breweries and wineries will remain closed for in-person dining. The health authorities call on residents to stay at home as much as possible and always wear face-masks outdoors.
The order allows religious services and protests but prohibits all other public and private gatherings.
Approximately 1,000 COVID-19 patients have died in Austria from November 18-28, according to data published by the Austrian Interior Ministry on Saturday.
The death toll from the coronavirus in Austria has jumped from 2,054 to 3,018 over the past 10 days, with 132 fatalities being recorded in the last 24 hours — the highest single-day increase since the beginning of the outbreak, according to the ministry.
Meanwhile, the overall number of COVID-19 cases has increased by 4,669 to 275,661 over the past 24 hours. A total of 4,279 patients are currently hospitalized, with 688 of them in intensive care units.
The Austrian government introduced tougher stay-at-home measures — the second lockdown since the outbreak in March — from November 17 until December 6.
In addition, Austria is set to launch a mass COVID-19 testing program in December. The scheme is expected to begin in the first week of the next month with the testing of teachers and police officers. It is envisioned that any citizen will be able to take part in the program, should they volunteer.
Argentina has extended mandatory social distancing measures until December 20, President Alberto Fernandez said during his address to the nation, adding that mandatory quarantine remains in force only in the town of San Carlos de Bariloche and in the city of Puerto Deseado.
The measures are taken amid a considerable drop in the number of COVID-19 cases per day over the last several weeks.
"We will keep the mandatory isolation regime only in two settlements — San Carlos de Bariloche and Puerto Deseado ... In other cities, there is a social distancing regime. This measure will remain in force until 20 December," Fernandez said late on Friday.
The president also said that given a probable second wave of the pandemic in March, the authorities were making efforts to vaccinate the whole population in risk groups by this time. In particular, the government is currently developing a plan a plan to vaccinate people at risk from January-February 2021.
Argentina is currently in talks with different vaccine producers. The country is planning to import the AstraZeneca Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, as well as that of Pfizer in March. The Latin American country also continues to work with Russia to start the vaccination by its Sputnik V in January and February.
In addition, Argentina has pledged $30 million to the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX) to get access to vaccines in March.
"These new tiers, alongside the wider deployment of mass testing, have the capacity to prevent our NHS being overwhelmed until vaccines arrive," Michael Gove said.
Russia has registered 27,100 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 2,242,633, the federal response centre said on Saturday.
In the past 24 hours, Russia has confirmed 27,100 COVID-19 cases in 85 regions, of which 5,724 (21.1 percent) were detected actively, with people showing no clinical symptoms," the response centre said, adding that the case count has reached 2,242,633.
Moscow has confirmed 7,320 new coronavirus cases over the given period. The Russian capital was followed by Saint Petersburg with 3,695 cases and the Moscow region with 1,065 new cases.
The response center said that Russia’s COVID-19 death toll increased by 510 to 39,068 over the past day.
Moreover, Russia confirmed a record 27,296 new recoveries of coronavirus patients, bringing the total to 1,739,470.
India has confirmed 41,322 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total number of those infected having reached 9,351,110, the country's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday.
The death toll from the disease has reached 136,200 people, with 485 new fatalities being recorded over the past day. More than 8.75 million people have recovered in India since the start of the outbreak.
India comes second in terms of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, following the United States with more than 13 million COVID-19 patients.
A day earlier, India registered 43,082 new COVID-19 cases, with 492 fatalities.
