The United States, India and Brazil top the list in terms of the number of registered coronavirus infections, while the largest number of COVID-19-related deaths has been observed in the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The US has registered over 200,000 new COVID-19 cases for the fourth day in a row, according to Johns Hopkins.
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The South Korean Health Ministry has said the country plans to buy COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, J&J.
The country is not in talks with China over potential COVID-19 vaccine purchases, nor is it considering buying Russian vaccines against the infection.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Mexico since the start of the epidemic has reached 1,182,249, with 110,074 deaths, a senior health official said.
"To date, 1,182,249 cases of COVID-19 have been registered in Mexico. This number includes 110,074 deaths," Jose Luis Alomia, director of epidemiology at the Mexican Ministry of Health, said at a press conference broadcast on Twitter.
According to the ministry, the number of confirmed cases in the past day was 6,399, the death toll stood at 357, and 67,513 people were currently sick. The authorities are studying 35,223 suspected cases.
Pfizer and Moderna, the two major pharmaceutical manufacturers expected to soon receive federal approval for emergency use of their coronavirus vaccines, have turned down invitations by President Donald Trump to attend a "Vaccine Summit" in the White House on Tuesday, US media reported.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel were both invited to attend the gathering, but neither of them will be there, STAT News said on Monday.
The Trump administration has publicly clashed with Pfizer in recent weeks over its involvement in the administration’s Operation Warp Speed and the timing of a data release showing its vaccine to be highly effective, the report said.
Trump has repeatedly claimed credit that the new vaccines were developed in record time and for making plans for the vaccines’ delivery throughout the United States.
US President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday during his planned Vaccine Summit at the White House to ensure enough COVID-19 vaccine for every American, a senior administration official told reporters.
"Tomorrow, the president is going to be signing an executive order on ensuring access to US government COVID-19 vaccines," the senior official said on Monday evening.
The executive order also mandates that the State Department, US Agency for International Development, US International Development Finance Corporation and the Export-Import Bank work collaboratively in assisting foreign nations with vaccine procurement efforts.
The cost of vaccination will be covered by private health insurance providers and the entirety of the program will be underwritten by the US government, a second administration official said.
People in Brazil will be able to get vaccinated against the coronavirus for free, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has announced.
"If there is ANVISA certification (scientific guidelines and legal precepts), the Brazilian government will offer the vaccine to the entire population in the free of charge and non-mandatory form," Bolsonaro wrote on Twitter on Monday.
The president added citing the economy ministry that there are enough resources for everyone to get vaccinated.
Earlier this month, Brazil’s health authorities announced that the country was going to get the first batch of 15 million doses of the Oxford University and AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine in the first two months of 2021. A total of 100 million doses are expected to arrive in Brazil in the first half of next year.
According to Brazilian Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello, another 160 million doses of the vaccine will be produced in Brazil in the second half of 2021.
Brazil is third in terms of the total number of coronavirus cases. With over 6.6 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, it is only surpassed by India (over 9.6 million cases) and the US (more than 14.9 million cases). Brazil has the second-largest coronavirus death toll (after the US), with more than 177,300 fatalities registered in the country.
The potential for a V-shaped US economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is being threatened by a resurgence of infections, White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow said on Monday.
Earlier in the day, top US epidemiologist Anthony Fauci said the United States is likely to see a major spike in coronavirus infections in mid-January stemming from year-end holidays in 2020.
"I’m going to make the case that I think we are in a strong V-shaped recovery," Kudlow said in a live-streamed interview with The Washington Post. "I do believe there are threats to that recovery with respect to the Christmas pops in the virus."
The US economy grew by 33.1 percent in the third quarter, after shrinking by 31.4 percent in the previous three months and 5 percent in the first quarter.
Despite the rebound, the economic outlook for the United States remains dire with a rash of new coronavirus infections reported across a nation with 14.8 million COVID-19 cases since January and more than 282,000 fatalities from that. In recent weeks, national daily hospitalization rates have reached more than 100,000, threatening to overrun the health system, experts said.
US jobs recovery has, meanwhile, stalled to its lowest since the start of pandemic.
The United States lost more than 21 million jobs between March and April, at the height of lockdowns forced by the COVID-19. A rebound of 2.5 million jobs was logged in May and 4.8 million in June, before the recovery began slowing. For both September and October, less than 700,000 jobs were added each month. In November, a mere 245,000 new jobs were registered, the smallest growth since May, when jobs started coming back.
The first doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by US pharma company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech will arrive in Israel in coming days, the Health Ministry said on Monday.
In mid-November, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the country had signed a contract with Pfizer to secure two-dose jabs for 4 million of its citizens.
"The first doses of Pfizer's vaccine are expected to arrive in Israel in coming days. The exact date is unknown so far," the ministry said.
Israel’s Army Radio, meanwhile, reported that the shipments would come on Thursday.
Apart from the contract with Pfizer, Israel also has deals with US biotechnology company Moderna and other vaccine manufacturers. In addition, the country launched clinical trials of its own vaccine in November. The phase 3 is scheduled for April-May.
Earlier, Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, one of Israel's most authoritative medical facilities, said it had ordered 1.5 million doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine. The deliveries are pending the ministry’s approval. If the ministry refuses authorization, Hadassah said it would use the vaccine in its foreign branches.
The new mysterious illness in southeastern India is not related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and the authorities suspect that it might have been caused by water contamination, Dolla Joshi Roy, district surveillance officer of West Godavari district, told Sputnik.
Over the weekend, Indian media reported that one person had died and dozens had been hospitalized with symptoms resembling an epilepsy attack in the city of Eluru of West Godavari district. The affected people complain about suffering symptoms like shivering, foaming at the mouth and nausea.
"[We] suspect water contamination with heavy metals, organophosphate compounds, pesticide contamination," Roy said.
According to the official, the authorities are still trying to establish the cause of the illness that has affected several hundred people, analyzing the cerebrospinal fluid, blood, serum, water, food, urine, vomitus, stool and vegetable samples.
The affected people have also had CT scans and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests for coronavirus.
"So far CT and RT-PCR reported negative for COVID-19. Hence there is no correlation between the two," the official added.
The district surveillance officer noted that the affected areas were in "psychological distress," and the government was seeking to manage the public panic via effective communication.
Moscow has registered 71 deaths of patients infected with COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, bringing the Russian capital's death toll to 9,496, the city's coronavirus response center said in a statement on Monday.
"Another 71 patients, who were diagnosed with pneumonia and tested positive for the coronavirus infection, died in Moscow," the center said.
In the previous day, 76 people infected with the coronavirus died in Moscow.
Canada will receive up to 249,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses developed by Pfizer and BioNTech before the end of December, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Monday.
“Canada has secured an agreement with Pfizer to begin early delivery of doses of their vaccine candidate. We are now contracted to receive up to 249,000 of our initial doses of Pfizer [and] BioNTech’s vaccine in the month of December,” Trudeau said.
The vaccine delivery will allow up to 124,500 Canadians to be vaccinated before the end of the year, given that Pfizer’s vaccine candidate is a two-shot immunization, Trudeau explained.
The vaccine will first be distributed to high-risk groups in urban settings, according to the prime minister, citing challenges associated with the handling of the Pfizer vaccine doses, which require -80-degree Celsius storage.
“There will be more doses of other vaccines at later dates on a priority basis for indigenous peoples, particularly those who are northern and remote,” Trudeau said, responding to a question about vaccine distribution to Canada’s indigenous community.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) has deemed indigenous Canadians as a priority group, however, this has proven to be contentious, with some calling for greater indigenous priority, while others, including Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister have criticized such an approach, calling it “unfair.”
Vaccine delivery is conditional on regulatory approval from Health Canada, although the prime minister said that emergency authorization is expected later this week.
To date, the Canadian government has linked agreements with seven biotechnology companies to procure their vaccines should they proceed to the production phase, with four currently under evaluation by the country’s health regulators. However, critics said at the time that these are only tenders, non-refundable at that, and will leave Canada lagging behind other countries and decried the confusion with different officials speculating on a range of delivery dates.
Monday’s announcement should calm fears among naysayers, who also cautioned that that a slow vaccine rollout compared to the United States and the United Kingdom could spell the end of the Trudeau government.
There do remain concerns that the seemingly expedited process following blistering criticism from the opposition and the press has put undue pressure on regulators to issue an approval and keep pace with the US and the UK.
During the press conference, Trudeau and other government officials assured the public that Health Canada follows a scrutinous approvals process in every instance, although sidestepped a question about potential liability in the event of adverse effects from the vaccine. The prime minister would only say that liability terms are reflected in each of the contracts the government inked with manufacturers but would not elaborate further.
As of Monday, Canadian authorities have reported nearly 420,000 coronavirus cases and more than 12,600 virus-related fatalities.
The New York State authorities will close indoor dining at restaurants and roll back other business re-openings while concurrently considering a full state-wide shutdown if hospitals face the threat of being overwhelmed by coronavirus cases, Governor Andrew Cuomo said during a press briefing on Monday.
"If you overwhelm the hospital capacity, you will have to go back to shut down," Cuomo said. "There are no options. That's not discretionary. That's not an alternative."
Cuomo has warned of the increasing number of people who test positive for the coronavirus - a situation he compared during the spring outbreak that turned the state into a hotspot.
The governor noted that 4,602 people have been hospitalized in New York State and added that hospitals have been told to increase their capacity by 25 percent.
Cuomo said the state authorities will move to restrict indoor dining in areas where the hospitalization rate has continued to increase.
"If after five days we haven’t seen stabilization in a region’s hospitalization rate, we’re going to clamp down on indoor dining," he added.
US sanctions have prevented Iran from making a payment for a coronavirus vaccine via the World Health Organization (WHO)-led instrument meant to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 shots, the governor of Iran’s Central Bank said on Monday.
"Since the purchase of a coronavirus vaccine through COVAX must be officially made through the WHO, all our attempts to transfer the necessary funds have so far been hindered by the inhumane sanctions of the US government and the need to obtain permission from OFAK [the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control]," Abdolnaser Hemmati wrote on Instagram.
In addition, the International Monetary Fund has refused to grant Iran a humanitarian loan under pressure and threats from the US, according to the central bank chief.
Despite these obstacles, the official continued, Iran continues to look for a way out, including other means to transfer funds and alternative ways to get a vaccine.
"The Health Ministry is also dealing with the issue of purchasing a vaccine from other countries. The news about the development of an indigenous coronavirus vaccine is encouraging," the official added.
Iran, the hardest-hit Middle Eastern country by the pandemic, joined the COVAX Facility in October. According to the national health ministry, the Islamic republic is planning to get coronavirus vaccines via three ways – COVAX, contracts with foreign manufacturers and domestic production. In late November, the ministry announced that Iranian companies were prepared to begin human trials of an indigenous coronavirus vaccine.
US President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that his personal attorney and long-time friend Rudy Giuliani is doing well after testing positive for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
"I just spoke to him, he's doing very well, no temperature," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump said his first telephone call this morning was with Giuliani.
On Sunday, Trump announced via Twitter that his lawyer tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
CNN reported, citing a source, that Giuliani was admitted to Georgetown University Hospital to undergo treatment.
The United States is likely to see a major spike in coronavirus infections in mid-January stemming from year-end holidays in 2020, US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci said Monday.
"Mid-January is probably going to be a bad time for small-spread families," Fauci told a media briefing hosted by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. "Living-room spread, we call it."
The spike in infections is expected after many Americans ignored health experts’ warnings not to travel for the November 26 Thanksgiving holiday or gather with those they do not immediately live with.
Fauci, who’s director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the COVID-19 impact from the Thanksgiving holiday was expected to be fully felt between the next week and 10 days, before more cases emerge from this month’s Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year holidays.
US airports screened 1.8 million passengers on the Thanksgiving weekend, the highest since March, data showed, as more people seem receptive of flying amid reports of imminent vaccine availability for the virus. Two vaccines, by Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc, are awaiting emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and at least one could be available in less than two weeks.
Despite the progress in vaccines, health experts warn that the US hospital system could still be overwhelmed in the coming months by COVID-19 cases, as evidenced in the March-April period.
Some 14.8 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus since January and more than 282,000 have died of related complications, data tracked by the Johns Hopkins University showed. In recent weeks, daily hospitalization of those infected have reached more than 100,000, threatening to overrun the health system.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said he was tested for COVID-19 on Monday as part of an ambitious plan to test the entire population to "rescue Christmas."
"Today I not only had an opportunity to get tested at Messe Halle in Vienna, I also got firsthand experience of how this testing is being rolled out," Kurz tweeted.
The chancellor thanked Austrian health workers and encouraged citizens to get tested, too.
Kurz was tested alongside Vienna governor Michael Ludwig. He said the mass testing had exposed some 1,000 infected among 500,000 people screened in the past few days.
Austria said last week that the phased easing of coronavirus restrictions would start Monday.
The PCR testing of the alpine nation's more than 8.8-million population aims to contain the spread of the virus ahead of the Christmas season. The voluntary mass vaccination campaign is scheduled to run from December 4-13 so that even those who test positive can finish the 10-day quarantine before the holidays season.
The WHO-led COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund has collected almost $240 million from various contributors, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday.
Earlier in the day, the WHO Foundation, an independent grant-making entity created in May this year, appointed global public health expert Anil Soni as its chief executive officer who will oversee the foundation goal of raising $1 billion for global health needs within three years.
"The foundation will also become a key partner of the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, which has so far raised $238 million from more than 650,000 individuals, companies and philanthropies," Tedros said at a briefing.
The COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund was established to support the global response against the coronavirus disease pandemic.
Authorities in Germany are considering to introduce a hard coronavirus-related quarantine beginning from December 27, with only supermarkets allowed to continue to work, German newspaper Bild reported on Monday, citing sources.
This decision might be made when German Chancellor Angela Merkel meets with the heads of federal states for consultations on the surge in new COVID-19 cases, according to the report.
No exact date of such meeting was specified.
As of Monday, Germany has confirmed over 1.1 million coronavirus cases, including 18,919 death, according to the Robert Koch Institute.
The Chengdu city in China's western Sichuan province has introduced restrictions on movement in one of its residential areas after discovering two coronavirus cases in one day, local government officials said on Monday.
A man tested positive for COVID-19 in Chengdu on Monday, who happened to be the husband of a woman who had been confirmed infected earlier in the day.
"From 9:00 pm [13:00 GMT] on December 7, 2020, the Taiping Village at the Putong Street under the Pidu district will be treated as an area of 'medium risk [for COVID-19]' and will introduce relevant containment measures," Xie Qiang, the director of Chengdu Center of Disease Control, said during a press briefing.
In practical terms this means that residents of the "medium risk" areas would not be allowed to leave, Xie explained.
The female patient went to a local hospital on Sunday after experiencing flu-like symptoms, and her computed tomography (CT) scan showed signs of infection in both lungs. The 69-year-old's COVID-19 test came back positive on Monday.
As COVID-19 continues its rampage around the world, the Chinese authorities stepped up measures in recent weeks to prevent any new local outbreaks, including by conducting mass testing and swift quarantine of the infected.
Yerevan has demonstrated its interest in Russia’s coronavirus vaccine, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday, following talks with his Armenian counterpart.
"We certainly talked about the tasks of counteracting the coronavirus … Yerevan is showing interest in cooperation on the use of the Russian antiviral vaccine," Lavrov said at a joint press conference with Ara Aivazian in Moscow.
The minister also pledged that Russia would continue to provide mobile laboratories, testing kits, reagents and medical equipment to Armenia free of charge.
In August, Russia registered the world’s pioneer COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, which was developed by the Gamaleya Institute. Another vaccine, EpiVacCorona by Siberia's state research centre Vector, got regulatory approval and embarked on post-registration clinical trials in October.
This week, the country is set to launch a large-scale vaccination. Medical personnel, social service workers and teachers are the first in line to get Sputnik V shots.
The World Economic Forum will hold the special annual meeting in Singapore in May 2021 and expects to return to Switzerland the following year, the forum said Monday.
"The World Economic Forum will convene the Special Annual Meeting 2021 in Singapore from 13-16 May. It will return to Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, for the Annual Meeting 2022," the WEF said in a press release.
The in-person meeting in 2021 is expected to "be the first global leadership event to address worldwide recovery from the pandemic."
Lebanon has signed two agreements with the German authorities totalling 100 million euros (around $121.3 million) on rebuilding the country's infrastructure and handling the coronavirus pandemic, press service of the Arab republic's foreign ministry said.
"Minister [of Foreign Affairs] Charbel Wehbe signed with German Ambassador [to Beirut] Andreas Kindl two agreements for a total of 100 million euros allocated directly by the German government to Lebanon for carrying out emergency work as part of efforts to restore infrastructure and help Lebanon fight the coronavirus," the service said.
The funds are earmarked for tackling a number of primary tasks, including the restoration of schools and water supply systems, according to the ministry.
The top Lebanese diplomat expressed hope that the signed accords would help Beirut receive more support from financial organizations.
Testing & vaccination are key to overcome the pandemic.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 7, 2020
The @EU_Commission works to ensure we have affordable, safe tests & vaccines in Europe.
I welcome the agreement on our proposal to relieve hospitals, doctors & people of VAT when buying #COVID19 vaccines & testing kits.
Greece has extended the coronavirus lockdown to January 7, with schools, restaurants, entertainment facilities and ski centers set to be closed, government spokesman Stelios Petsas said on Monday.
Movement between regions will be banned, and the curfew will remain in place, Petsas added.
New announcements related to operation of churches, hairdressing saloons and shops will be made late this week, the spokesman added.
"We see stabilization and a slight drop in incidence. However, the pace is still slow, which makes the government choose a safer way to resume normal life. We will act more slowly, but steadily," Petsas explained.
Around 2,000 Moscow residents got vaccinated against the coronavirus this weekend, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Monday, assuring that the healthcare system is prepared for mass vaccination.
The first vaccination centers opened in the Russian capital late last week.
"Around 2,000 people got vaccinated this weekend," Sobyanin told the presidium of the Russian government's coronavirus response centre.
"We have checked the entire system: warehouse operation, cold chain delivery to vaccination centres, vaccine storage in vaccination centres, defrost technology, vaccination ... I believe that the system is ready for more large-scale vaccination," Sobyanin added.
From 3,000 to 5,000 Hungarians could take part in clinical trials of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus, Hungarian Human Resources Minister Miklos Kasler said on Monday.
According to Kasler's post on Facebook, Hungarian medical experts have received "detailed notification" about the Russian vaccine in Moscow, and saw that "that the vaccine is being manufactured with the latest technology and with WHO protocols being applied."
Paris Air Show, one of the world's largest aircraft and spacecraft events traditionally held at Le Bourget, will not be held in June 2021 because of the coronavirus, the organisers said Monday.
"In light of the uncertainty linked to the current COVID-19 health crisis, the Paris Air Show organization has made the decision to cancel the 2021 edition of the show, which was scheduled to take place from 21 to 27 June 2021," the organizers said in a press release.
The next show is now expected in June 2023, but the exact date is yet to be announced, the press release read.
Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac has secured about $500 million to fund the development and production of its vaccine against the coronavirus disease, the company said on Monday.
The investor, Sino Biopharmaceutical Limited, is an investment holding company specializing in pharmaceutical products, has made the investment in exchange for some 15 percent of the total equity interest of Sinovac's subsidiary, Sinovac Life Sciences, involved in developing the CoronaVac vaccine candidate.
"Sinovac Biotech Ltd. ... today announced that Sinovac Life Sciences Co., Ltd. ("Sinovac LS") (formerly known as Sinovac Research and Development Co., Ltd.), a subsidiary of Sinovac, has secured approximately US$500 million in funding for further development, capacity expansion and manufacturing of the CoronaVac, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, as well as conduct other development and operational activities," the company said in a statement.
According to Chairman, President and CEO of Sinovac Weidong Yin, the deal will also help the company improve its vaccine sales capabilities, expand into Asia, as well as develop and access new technologies.
Sinovac started developing its vaccine back in January immediately after the outbreak of then-unknown pneumonia disease, later named COVID-19, had been officially confirmed in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The vaccine has been approved for Phase 3 clinical trials in Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey and Chile, while the Phase 1 and 2 trials' results in China have shown that the vaccine is capable of inducing antibodies in over 90 percent of volunteers who received two doses.
Millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine could be airlifted to Britain if ports are overloaded in case a no-deal Brexit agreement with the EU, junior foreign office minister James Cleverly told Sky News on Monday.
"We have extensive plans in place to ensure the protection of our vaccines, that is absolutely the priority product," James Cleverly said. "We've looked at the use of non-commercial flights, we have border arrangements in place."
"The vaccine is the top priority product in terms of bringing anything into the UK," he added.
Last week, Britain became the first Western nation to register the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and said that it would initially make the shot available at hospitals for care workers and the most vulnerable people before distributing stocks to clinics.
Vaccines have started to arrive in Britain from Pfizer's manufacturing site in Belgium. London has ordered 40 million doses of the vaccine, which is enough to vaccinate 20 million people.
Meanwhile, transport between Britain and mainland Europe is likely to be seriously disrupted in case trade negotiations with the EU result in a no-deal.
"I hope that the system that we have created will enable us to efficiently fight the pandemic. We have already launched mass vaccination. I hope we will secure ultimate victory over this disease in the next few months," Rakova said at the Medicine and Quality scientific online conference.
Vaccination against coronavirus has started in Moscow, and the authorities hope it will be possible to defeat the virus within the next few months, Deputy Moscow Mayor for Social Development Anastasia Rakova said on Monday.
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the number of cybercrimes and their victims, although their rate has had strange fluctuations, Eugene Kaspersky, the CEO of Russian IT security company Kaspersky Lab said.
"There has been only one change - there are more of them [cybercrimes] and there are more victims. In fact, it was interesting to monitor what was happening to cybercrimes as the whole world went on lockdown. In April, all indicators went up and in May, everything dropped. Why? During summer everything once again went up and reached new numbers," Kaspersky said.
The expert confessed that he did not know why this was the case exactly, venturing to guess that criminals earned so much money at the beginning of the lockdown that it took some time for them to monetize what they had already earned.
Following the beginning of the pandemic, the world started to rely on digital technology even more in order to limit human contact and hinder the spread of the infection. This, however, has made people more vulnerable to outside interference and hacking attacks.
Russia has registered 28,142 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, down from the record 29,039 the day before, bringing the total to 2,488,912, the federal response centre said on Monday.
"In the past 24 hours, Russia has confirmed 28,142 COVID-19 cases in 85 regions, of which 5,789 (20.6 percent) were detected actively, with people showing no clinical symptoms," the response centre said, adding that the case count has reached 2,488,912.
Moscow has confirmed 7,279 new coronavirus cases over the given period, down from 7,512 the day before. The Russian capital was followed by St. Petersburg with 3,741 cases, down from 3,753 the day before, and the Moscow region with 1,315 new cases, up from 1,295 the day before.
The response centre reported 456 coronavirus fatalities, down from 457 the day before, raising the country's death toll to 43,597.
As many as 18,850 coronavirus patients were confirmed to have recovered, down from 21,342 the day before, bringing the total to 1,956,588.
The Peruvian government is in talks with Moscow on purchasing Russia's coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V, but is yet to make the final decision, as the vaccine has to be approved by Peruvian sanitary authorities, the South American country's ambassador to Russia, Juan Del Campo, told Sputnik in an interview.
"Yes, negotiations are ongoing, but the vaccine can be put on the market and be used only after it is approved by Peru's sanitary authorities. This has not happened yet. I can tell you that the process is ongoing, but there is nothing exact yet. We cannot say yet that we will purchase the Russian vaccine, not yet," Del Campo said.
Peru has been following the development of the Russian vaccine since the very beginning, and has a huge respect for the work of Russian scientists and the progress in vaccine creation, the ambassador stressed.
"This provoked our interest in the Russian vaccine. But we have also expressed interest in other vaccines. However, this does not mean we will choose only one vaccine," Del Campo explained.
The actor was shooting for his next film, 'Jug Jugg Jeeyo', in Chandigarh, India, along with actors Neetu Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, and Kiara Advani, among others.
White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx said the current surge in COVID-19 incidence in the United States was the worst event for the country.
“This is the worst event that this country will face not just from a public health side, yet we know what behaviors spread the virus and we know how to change those behaviors to stop spreading the virus," Birx said during an interview on NBC News' “Meet the Press.”
The United States is seeing a sharp rise in the number of coronavirus cases - currently topping 14,756,900, with over 282,000 deaths and over 5.6 million recoveries, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Brazil has exceeded 6.6 million, and 26,363 cases have been confirmed over the past day, the country's Health Ministry said in a statement.
According to the ministry, 6,603,540 cases have been registered in Brazil since the beginning of the epidemic.
In the past 24 hours, doctors have recorded 313 deaths in Brazil due to coronavirus.
Overall, 176,941 patients died and nearly 5.8 million people recovered from COVID-19 in Brazil since the outbreak start.
