The list of the most affected countries in the world starts with the US, where the authorities have registered over 22.3 million infected, and a death toll in excess of 373,000. Next is India (10.4 million cases, over 150,000 fatalities) and Brazil (over 8 million cases, more than 202,000 deaths).
In the meantime, European nations have launched mass vaccination campaigns in a bid to stop the virus.
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MEXICO CITY(Sputnik) - The Mexican government, following a visit to Argentina, where the production of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine will be organized, said it had reached preliminary agreements on the purchase of up to 24 million doses of the drug, Deputy Health Secretary Hugo Lopez-Gatell told reporters.
“We met with Russian officials, both scientists and the side that controls access to this vaccine, and reached some preliminary agreements that would potentially give the Mexican government the opportunity to receive vaccines [produced] under a patent from the Russian Gamaleya Institute," he said.
"We think we could use up to 24 million doses of this vaccine for 12 million people, since the Sputnik V vaccination scheme envisions the use of two doses of this biological product," the deputy secretary said.
On Tuesday, Malasya's King Al-Sultan Abdullah declared a national state of emergency to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a palace statement.
The state of emergency across the country will last until August 1 or earlier, depending on the state of coronavirus infections and deaths, the palace said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - British supermarkets are tightening mask wearing rules amid a spike in coronavirus infection rates in the United Kingdom, the Sainsbury’s chain has announced.
"I’ve spent a lot of time in our stores reviewing the latest situation over the last few days and on behalf of all my colleagues, I am asking our customers to help us keep everyone safe," Simon Roberts, chief executive of Sainsbury's, said as quoted by The Evening Standard on Monday.
Sainsbury’s will now have security guards monitoring proper mask wearing and ensuring that customers do not shop in large groups.
"The vast majority of customers are shopping safely, but I have also seen some customers trying to shop without a mask and shopping in larger family groups," Simon Roberts said.
Sainsbury’s is joining Morrisons, as well as other supermarket giants, in enforcing stricter mask wearing rules amid the spread of the new coronavirus variant in the UK.
The United Kingdom has more than 3.1 million confirmed coronavirus cases. The country’s COVID-19 death toll stands at over 82,000 according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. The UK has seen a major spike in infection rates over the past few weeks, following the emergence of a new coronavirus strain, identified in England, that is highly transmissible.
BUENOS AIRES (Sputnik) - Ecuador has registered one case of the new coronavirus strain that was first discovered in the United Kingdom last month, presidential administration spokeswoman Maria Caridad Vela said on Monday.
"Tests of the patient, who was suspected of having the new strain of the coronavirus detected in the UK, came back positive," the official said at a virtual press conference.
The person entered the country in mid-December before the UK informed the World Health Organization of the mutated variant of the virus and tested negative for the coronavirus back then, she added.
The new variant of SARS-CoV-2 is reported to be 70 percent more transmissible than other coronavirus strains. Although the new strain has not been proven to be more pathogenic, many states shut their borders and suspended travel with the United Kingdom. The closures, however, did not prevent the strain from infiltrating dozens of countries.
On Monday, the president of Portugal, Marcelo Nuno Duarte Rebelo de Sousa, tested positive for COVID-19.
According to the president’s website, a day earlier he had tested negative but in the evening it became known that the PCR test was, instead, positive.
De Sousa canceled his entire agenda over the next few days, starting with a session with experts at Infarmed and a scheduled hearing of political parties.
LONDON (Sputnik) - The UK added over 46,000 new cases of COVID-19 to its tally on Monday, the first time the daily number of infections falls below the 50,000 mark this year.
According to the government’s data, 46,169 new cases of infection and 529 COVID-19 deaths were registered over the preceding 24 hours.
This takes the overall number of cases to 3,118,518 cases with 81,960 deaths, the highest in Europe in both metrics. The death toll exceeds the more pessimistic predictions made at the onset of the pandemic, when government advisers said the country can expect anywhere between 20,000 and 80,000 deaths.
The last time the UK posted a daily number of cases below a half-century thousand was on December 28.
A national lockdown has been in place in England since last week, already the third in a row and as strict as the first. Authorities have not ruled out extending the lockdown through late March.
NEW YORK (Sputnik) - New York State seeks to create a Public Health Corps of 1,000 medical fellows to coordinate a state-wide coronavirus vaccination, Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a live-streamed briefing on Monday.
"New York will hire 1,000 health corps fellows who will agree to serve for one year," Cuomo said. "They will be trained to facilitate a statewide coordinated vaccination operation and do it safely and quickly in every part of the state."
Cuomo said New York will also train and certify 100,000 health emergency volunteers for rapid testing "that not only saves lives but is also a key to the state's economic reopening plan."
Five new coronavirus vaccination centers opened in New York City this week in the latest effort to accelerate the sluggish pace that has dogged the rollout in the city.
Cuomo said a month ago the state could remain in danger from the pandemic at least until June, even with vaccinations available for the coronavirus.
At the peak of the coronavirus outbreak in April, New York State reported about 10,000 positive cases a day. It also had about 18,000 people in hospital and faced roughly 800 deaths a day from the virus.
ANKARA (Sputnik) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday warned citizens about a serious shortage of water resources due to the prolonged drought and called on the nation to save water.
"Our country has seen periods of drought and periods when we were flooded. Now we are experiencing one of the driest periods. Some of our reservoirs are completely depleted. Together we need to take action against the threat of drought, from household consumption to agricultural needs," Erdogan told reporters.
According to the Turkish leader, water consumption should be reduced by up to 50 percent.
In December, the country's Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said that 2020 was the driest year in the past five years and that the water resources of Turkey's three big cities — Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir — would be sufficient for five months at the most.
ANKARA (Sputnik) - Turkey may begin the mass vaccination against the coronavirus with a Chinese vaccine either on Thursday or Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.
"Turkey is following the production of vaccines around the world. We have already secured 3 million doses of a Chinese vaccine. I hope that we will begin the vaccination campaign on Thursday or Friday," Erdogan told journalists after a cabinet meeting.
The Turkish leader also promised a soon, but gradual lift of coronavirus-related restrictions.
KIEV (Sputnik) - The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is looking for an opportunity to provide medical assistance to the Ukrainian sailors infected with COVID-19 aboard a Hong-Kong flagged bulk carrier near Malaysia, the ministry's spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said on Monday.
"The Ukrainian Embassy in Malaysia is in touch with Ukrainian sailors. Together with the shipowner, we are working out the possibility of sending a doctor to the ship to provide emergency medical care," Nikolenko wrote on Twitter.
Earlier in the day, it was reported that two Ukrainian sailors were left without medical help off the coast of Malaysia aboard the SFL Kate vessel. Eight of 21 crew members have been infected with the coronavirus. According to one of the Ukrainian sailors, the local authorities have refused to hospitalize the crew.
PARIS (Sputnik) - French Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Monday that there is the possibility of a third lockdown in the country, but this was not the primary scenario.
"A third self-isolation regime cannot be ruled out as an extreme measure," Castex said during a meeting with parliamentarians, as broadcast by the BFMTV television channel.
Castex, referring to the current indicators, noted that at the moment, the curfew was enough.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The transmission mechanisms of the novel coronavirus via cold-chain foods and mink farms have puzzled experts and are still being researched, Marion Koopmans, a member of the WHO's fact-finding mission to China, told Chinese state-run broadcaster CGTN.
"At this stage I do not think we can rule anything out, we should not rule anything out, but it is important to start ... in Wuhan where the first big outbreak occurred. We need to have an open mind to all sorts of hypothesis, and that is really what we have been asked to do but starting in Wuhan where of course we first learned about the situation", Marion Koopmans, a member of the WHO delegation that will arrive in China later this week, stressred.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia's health ministry has authorized clinical trials of the Sputnik Light vaccine against coronavirus, according to the ministerial register.
"Sputnik Light-2020 'Open trials of Sputnik Light safety, acceptability and immunizing power in preventing the coronavirus infection'", the document read.
According to the document, the trials will include 150 volunteers and are expected to be completed on 31 December.
LONDON (Sputnik) – England’s top medical officer, Chris Whitty, said on Monday that the coming weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic will be the worst, as the new coronavirus strain continues to spread across the country and more people are getting infected, adding more pressure on the National Health Service.
"The next few weeks are going to be the worst weeks of this pandemic in terms of numbers and to the NHS", Whitty told the BBC. He said that in London alone, one in 30 people currently has the coronavirus, while in England as a whole, the figure is one in 50 people.
This is a serious problem and is rising in every part of England, the medical officer said, adding that the first thing is to understand what this new variant means in terms of numbers for the NHS.
“During the peak we had back in April last year we had about 18,000 people in the NHS, (…) as of yesterday, we had over 30,000 people in the NHS", he stressed.
According to Whitty, the only thing people should do now is to follow current lockdown rules and minimise all unnecessary public contact, because the vaccines being rolled out, he said, will "take several weeks" to have an effect.
