The most affected nation is currently the US, with over 24.4 million infected and 406,000 deaths. It is followed by India (almost 10.6 million cases, over 152,500 fatalities) and Brazil (more than 8.6 million cases, at least 212,000 deaths).
In the meantime, multiple countries have launched mass vaccination campaigns to curb the virus.
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MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) – The number of people, who have died of the coronavirus in Colombia, has increased by 395 to 50,187 over the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said.
The number of confirmed cases has risen by 15,366 to 1,972,345 within the same period of time, according to the ministry.
More than 115,000 people are currently ill in the Latin American nation.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci told reporters that the number of novel coronavirus cases in the United States may be plateauing.
"When you look more recently at the seven day average of cases - remember we were going between 300,000 and 400,000 and 200,000 and 300,000 - right now it looks like it might be actually plateauing in the sense of turning around," Fauci said during a press conference on Thursday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Dutch parliament supported on Thursday the proposal of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte to introduce a curfew due to the spread of the coronavirus, media reported.
The NOS TV channel reported that the majority in the Dutch parliament supported the idea of introducing a curfew, but decided it should be introduced half an hour later, at 9 p.m. (20:00 GMT), rather than at 08:30 p.m., as Rutte proposed. The curfew will end at 4:30 a.m.
The Netherlands extended until February 9 the lockdown introduced on December 15. Restaurants, cafes, museums, theaters and other public institutions are closed.
The president was vaccinated this morning at the Posadas hospital, the Razon newspaper reported.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The World Health Organization (WHO) will begin the procedure preceding the filing of an application for registration of Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V on January 22, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
"I would also like to say that on January 22, the World Health Organization will begin the procedure preceding the filing of the Sputnik V registration application," Zakharova said at a briefing.
The Sputnik V vaccine has been registered in Argentina, Bolivia, Serbia, Hungary, Algeria, Palestine, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Paraguay and Turkmenistan under the fast-track procedure. The drug is also registered in Russia and Belarus.
LONDON (Sputnik) - The Glastonbury festival, which was due to run in June in the southwest of England, has been canceled for the second year in a row due to the coronavirus pandemic, the event's organizers said on Thursday.
Last year, the 50th-anniversary open-air music festival, which was due to run from June 24-28 and include Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar as headliners, was canceled over the outbreak of the pandemic. Tickets for Glastonbury 2020 were rolled over to the 2021 event.
"With great regret, we must announce that this year’s Glastonbury Festival will not take place, and that this will be another enforced fallow year for us. Tickets for this year will roll over to next year," the organizers wrote on Twitter.
The Glastonbury festival is one of the largest music events in Europe and has been held since 1970 near the city of Glastonbury. Tens of thousands of people attend every year.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A preliminary study has found that the South African variant of the coronavirus entails high reinfection risks due to the resistance of its genetic code to the immune response built up from prior infection and, potentially, vaccines, the Medical Xpress news portal reported.
As mentioned in the report, the original coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19 has mutated over time, and several new variants were detected in recent weeks in such countries as Brazil, South Africa and the United Kingdom. The study from the report looked into the South African variant, in particular, and found that it was resistant to antibodies built in the plasma of recovered patients.
"Here we show that the 501Y.V2 lineage, which contains nine spike mutations and rapidly emerged in South Africa during the second half of 2020, is largely resistant to neutralising antibodies elicited by infection with previously circulating lineages. This suggests that, despite the many people who have already been infected with SARS-CoV-2 globally and are presumed to have accumulated some level of immunity, new variants such as 501Y.V2 pose a significant re-infection risk," the authors were quoted as saying.
According to researchers, their findings can have added value for vaccine developers who build their product on the immune response to the virus's spike protein, as well as for the use of convalescent plasma as a treatment for COVID-19.
The medical news portal noted that the study had not yet been peer reviewed and required more research on the effectiveness of other parts of the immune response other than plasma.
The report cited two other preliminary research papers published on Wednesday as saying that the antibodies from previously-infected patients were largely effective against the UK variant and that the vaccine developed by US-German duo Pfizer/BioNTech was effective against that variant.
Earlier this month, a Pfizer-funded study claimed that their vaccine was effective against the UK and South African variants.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Beirut has nothing against the registration of Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus in the country, the Lebanese ambassador in Moscow, Shawki Bou Nassar, told Sputnik on Thursday.
"Certainly, the Lebanese side has no objection to registering the Russian vaccine," Bou Nassar said when asked whether Lebanon would register Sputnik V in the country.
"As far as I know, there are companies in the Lebanese-Russian private sector communicating with the health ministry in Beirut to buy the vaccine and supply it to Lebanon," the ambassador added.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) will be glad to cooperate with the COVAX global coronavirus vaccine procurement facility but prioritizes direct shipments of the Sputnik V vaccine, RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev said on Thursday.
"We work with COVAX, we are in negotiations, we have submitted information ... We will work with COVAX, but for us it will certainly not replace the approach that prioritizes direct shipments abroad", Dmitriev told reporters.
"COVAX will be a small part of our portfolio, most [of the shipments] will be direct, although we will be glad to cooperate", the RDIF chief explained.
"I have really talked with the Russian president. We know that Russia has the Sputnik V vaccine, and I said that if we want to cooperate — which I think is possible despite our serious political differences — we could cooperate in humanitarian spheres during the pandemic", Merkel noted.
MURMANSK, Russia (Sputnik) - The Swedish government on Thursday decided to extend restrictive coronavirus-related measures over the surge in infections, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said.
Lofven told reporters that the epidemiological situation in the country remained critical with the healthcare system put under immense pressure.
"The recommendation for the use of protective masks in public transport will be in force until spring", the prime minister said.
Restaurants and bars will not be allowed to serve alcohol after 8.00 p.m. (19:00 GMT) up until 7 February.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Russia is prepared to work with the United States to fight the ongoing pandemic, including on the development of treatments against COVID-19, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov told Sputnik.
"We are open to further cooperation with the United States to combat the pandemic, including in areas such as the development of effective treatments for the infection", Antonov stated.
Antonov noted that on 30 July 2020, the US National Academy of Sciences, Technology, and Medicine and the Russian Academy of Sciences had signed a joint protocol on cooperation in various fields of research related to COVID-19.
"As for the vaccine, the situation turned out to be more complicated. Some people in America tried to make this about politics”, he went on to say. "Washington is openly sceptical about our achievements. I mean Sputnik V and EpiVacCorona. False information about Russian vaccines being ineffective and unsafe is being spread. However, the scientific community rates the Russian advances highly".
