The global coronavirus death toll has surpassed 1,750,000, while the number of infected worldwide has reached 80 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. The worst-hit countries are the US (over 18.9 million infected, almost 332,000 deaths), India (over 10 million infections, more than 147,000 fatalities), and Brazil (over 7.4 million cases, and a death toll of over 190,000).
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SEOUL (Sputnik) - South Korea has confirmed the first three cases of the new coronavirus strain in the country, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The three people arrived from the United Kingdom on December 22, KDCA said.
"They arrived in the country as a family living in London and tests revealed the presence of the virus; they are now in quarantine," KDCA said.
South Korean health specialists are now analyzing biological material from another family of four people who have arrived from the UK and have tested positive for the coronavirus.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A third case of the new coronavirus strain that emerged in the UK earlier this month has been confirmed in Canada, Ontario authorities announced in a statement.
On Saturday, the first two cases of the new coronavirus variant in Canada were announced by Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario's Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health.
"A third case of the COVID-19 UK Variant has been reported in an individual in Ottawa with recent travel from the UK. The Ottawa Public Health Department has informed the individual who is now in self-isolation. Case and contact management investigation is underway," Ontario authorities said in a Sunday update.
According to the release, there has been an update regarding the first two cases, which are a couple from Durham who were said to have gone into self-isolation on Saturday.
"In addition, since the initial reporting of the first two cases of the variant on December 26, 2020, additional investigation and follow-up case and contact management has revealed that the couple had indeed been in contact with a recent traveller from the UK, which is new information not provided in earlier interviews. The cases and contacts have been informed and are now in self-isolation as per public health protocols," Ontario authorities said on Sunday.
ANKARA (Sputnik) - The first shipment of Sinovac Biotech's vaccine against COVID-19 from China to Turkey has been delayed due to an outbreak of COVID-19 at Beijing customs, Turkish Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca said on Sunday.
"Due to the COVID-19 case at Beijing customs, its operations have temporarily stopped. Therefore, the delivery of vaccines has been pushed back one or two days," Koca wrote on Twitter.
Turkey is expecting to receive 50 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine, as well as 4.5 million doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine against the disease. The country plans to carry out its COVID-19 vaccination program in four stages, beginning with the most at-risk groups.
MINSK, (Sputnik) - Belarus is set to receive supplies of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 for use in the country's mass vaccination program at the start of 2021, Russia's ambassador in Minsk, Dmitry Mezentsev, said on Sunday.
Clinical trials of Sputnik V began in Belarus this past October, although Mezentsev said that further supplies are coming shortly, ahead of the launch of the country's mass vaccination campaign.
"We are grateful for the professional assessment given by Belarusian doctors, who are judging the efficacy and success of the vaccine trials, which have shown that it [Sputnik V] can be produced jointly. Soon, at the beginning of the year, the first vaccine shipments will be delivered to Belarus for vaccination," Mezentsev said during an appearance on Belarus' STV broadcaster.
Belarusian Minister of Health Dmitry Pinevich said this past Monday that Belarus will begin vaccinating its citizens against COVID-19, using Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, in January.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund, which is producing Sputnik V along with the Gamaleya research institute, said on December 21 that Belarus had become the first foreign country to register the Russian-made vaccine.
Since the start of the pandemic, more than 186,000 positive tests for COVID-19 have been registered in Belarus, including the 1,825 new cases reported on Sunday.
MOSCOW, (Sputnik) - The COVID-19 case total in the United States has surpassed 19 million, according to data provided by the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
As of 17:55 GMT on Sunday, Johns Hopkins University had registered 19,016,301 positive tests for the coronavirus disease in the United States.
The country's death toll, as of the same time, stood at 332,251.
The US case total, which is the largest in the world, topped the 18 million mark this past Monday.
Vaccines against the coronavirus disease produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are currently being offered in the United States.
MOSCOW, (Sputnik) - Countries that are major importers of Russian weapons, such as Algeria and Egypt, are among those that have been most affected by the ongoing coronavirus disease pandemic, Russia's deputy minister of defense, Alexander Fomin, told the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper on Sunday.
"Unfortunately, Russia's main partners in the field of military-technical cooperation, such as Algeria, Egypt, India, China, and others, are among the most affected … It is expected that over the next two years, global military spending will decrease by eight percent and the global export of military goods [will fall] by four percent," Fomin remarked.
Analysts are predicting that the global arms market is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic growth levels until 2023, Fomin added.
Russia has postponed several arms deliveries throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to date. In part, this was caused by international travel restrictions that prevented foreign experts from conducting pre-delivery inspections of goods, as well as the inability of Russian specialists to travel to other countries to provide technical support.
MOSCOW, (Sputnik) - AstraZeneca has found a "winning formula" to boost the efficacy of its vaccine against COVID-19, which has been developed in conjunction with the University of Oxford, CEO Pascal Soriot told the UK's Sunday Times newspaper.
The so-called Oxford vaccine had an average efficacy of 70 percent in clinical trials, although one dosing regimen, which saw participants given a half dose of the vaccine followed by a whole dose one month later, showed an efficacy rate of 90 percent.
"We think we have figured out the winning formula and how to get efficacy that, after two doses, is up there with everybody else," Soriot told the newspaper.
The AstraZeneca CEO said that he was unable to provide full details of the optimum dosing regimen for the vaccine at this stage, adding that the results will be published at a later date.
Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19, as well as vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, have shown efficacy levels in excess of 90 percent during clinical trials.
The UK government has submitted purchase orders for 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine against COVID-19. Plans are in the works for the vaccine to be rolled out to the public from January 4, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported earlier in the day.
WARSAW, (Sputnik) - The Polish government is hoping to vaccinate enough of the country's population against COVID-19 to overcome the pandemic by the second quarter of 2021, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Sunday.
"Vaccination provides a great opportunity to free ourselves from the pandemic. The success of the vaccination program depends on how many people are vaccinated. The more people who get vaccinated, the sooner we will bid coronavirus farewell. Perhaps in the second quarter [of next year], it will be possible to have a sufficient proportion of the population vaccinated in order to make the coronavirus less of a problem," Morawiecki said at a press briefing.
Poland launched its mass COVID-19 vaccination program earlier on Sunday, along with the rest of the European Union's 27 member states. The first shipment, comprising of 10,000 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech's vaccine against the disease, arrived in the country on Saturday.
The government expects to receive approximately 300,000 doses of the vaccine by the end of December, enough to vaccinate 150,000 people.
In Poland, pensioners, at-risk individuals, and first responders are set to be vaccinated first, followed by the general public from January 15. Morawiecki said earlier in December that the Polish government has secured a total of 60 million vaccine doses from six producers.
Since the start of the pandemic, more than 1.25 million positive tests for COVID-19 have been registered in Poland, and 27,118 people have died due to coronavirus-related complications. The country's health ministry registered 3,678 new cases of the disease on Sunday.
MOSCOW, (Sputnik) - The United States recorded more than 226,000 COVID-19 new cases for Saturday, which is more than a twofold increase from a day earlier, data compiled by Johns Hopkins University shows.
On Friday, the country logged 105,906 new infections, according to the global tracker.
Last week, the university registered an all-time record of over 249,000 new cases in the US.
In total, the country has confirmed 18.9 million infections, including over 331,000 deaths.
MOSCOW, (Sputnik) - The Czech Republic's Buggyra Racing team, which was set to compete at the upcoming 2021 edition of the Dakar Rally in January, has confirmed two cases of COVID-19 ahead of the start of the competition, the team said on Sunday.
In an update, Buggyra Racing said that two of the team's mechanics had tested positive for the coronavirus disease, adding that a third was currently unable to travel after being in close contact with an individual who tested positive.
Buggyra Racing is expected to enter four vehicles in the upcoming Dakar Rally, which is set to be held in Saudi Arabia from January 3-15.
All participants are required to provide a negative test for COVID-19 before traveling to Saudi Arabia. Upon arrival, drivers and support staff must also undergo a 48-hour period of self-isolation.
The year 2020 summarized by 4 pilots.#Covid19 #Flightradar24 pic.twitter.com/LTNP0OAO9m
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) December 25, 2020
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Iraq's medical regulator has given emergency use approval to a vaccine against COVID-19 produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, spokesman Saif Al-Badr told the Iraqi News Agency on Sunday.
"The National Authority for Drug Selection has agreed to use the vaccine produced by Pfizer in an emergency manner to confront the Corona pandemic in Iraq", Al-Badr said, as quoted by the agency.
"Unfortunately, we have encountered quite massive instances of unfair competition. Let's recall the attacks that took place against Sputnik [V vaccine]. Absolutely frantic. Obviously, there was no sign of cooperation there", Peskov told the Rossiya 1 broadcaster.
"But now, when Sputnik has indeed become one of the most demanded vaccines in the world, these attacks are not so effective anymore", the spokesman added.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - New York State Police have launched an investigation into the Parcare Community Health Network's alleged violations of state guidelines by fraudulently obtaining and distributing vaccines against coronavirus, Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said.
"The State Department of Health has been made aware of reports that Parcare Community Health Network, an Orange County provider, may have fraudulently obtained COVID-19 vaccine, transferred it to facilities in other parts of the state in violation of state guidelines, and diverted it to members of the public - contrary to the state's plan to administer it first to frontline healthcare workers, as well as nursing home residents and staffers", Zucker said in a statement.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia has registered 28,284 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, up from 29,258 the day before, bringing the total to 3,050,248, the federal response centre said on Sunday.
"Over the past 24 hours, 28,284 coronavirus cases were confirmed in 85 regions, including 4,240 cases (15 percent) without clinical symptoms", the centre said, adding that the cumulative case count has now reached 3,050,248, with the rate of increase at 1 percent.
"The vaccine which arrived from the European Union yesterday, is a hope, a hope that we will return to a normal life", Prime Minister Andrej Babis said before taking the medication.
AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot told The Sunday Times the vaccine is expected to be effective against the new strain of the virus recently discovered in the UK.
"So far, we think the vaccine should remain effective. But we can't be sure, so we're going to test that", he added
