The US is the most affected country, with around 33 million cases and a death toll in excess of 586,000.
Next comes India, which has been experiencing a major crisis in the last few weeks, with almost 25 million infected and over 274,000 deaths. Brazil has confirmed over 15.6 million cases and around 436,000 fatalities from the pandemic.
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DOHA, May 19 (Sputnik) – Saudi Arabia will make the COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for any type of activities, including using public transport and visiting government agencies, starting from August 1, the national Interior Ministry said.
"To fight the coronavirus, it was decided to make the COVID-19 vaccination mandatory starting from August 1, 2021, for entering any government or private organization, participating in any cultural, scientific or entertainment events as well as using public transport," the ministry wrote on its Twitter page on late Tuesday.
At the moment, more than 11.8 million out of about 34.2 million Saudi Arabians have been inoculated against COVID-19.
Saudi Arabia has confirmed more than 435,000 coronavirus cases so far, with about 7,200 fatalities.
BUENOS AIRES (Sputnik) – Argentina has registered 35,543 new COVID-19 cases within the past 24 hours, marking the largest daily increase since the start of the outbreak, the national Ministry of Health said.
The death toll has risen by 745 to 71,771 people within the same period of time, according to the ministry.
The total number of those who tested positive for COVID-19 in Argentina has reached 3,371,508. About 3 million have recovered from the disease.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Brazil has increased by 75,445 to 15,732,836 within the past 24 hours, the national Ministry of Health said on late Tuesday.
According to the ministry, the death toll has risen by 2,513 to 439,050 people within the same period of time.
More than 14.24 million patients have recovered since the start of the outbreak.
A day earlier, the country confirmed more than 29,000 new coronavirus cases, with 786 fatalities.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The number of doses of vaccines against the coronavirus used around the world has surpassed 1.5 billion, Johns Hopkins University says.
The total number of the used doses stands at 1,506,193,159.
At the same time, the number of people diagnosed with COVID-19 exceeds 163 million, with over 3.39 million fatalities.
TX is prohibiting mask mandates by gov’t entities.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) May 18, 2021
Starting May 21, local govts attempting to impose mask mandates can be fined up to $1K.
We're also prohibiting public schools from mandating masks after June 4.
Texans, not gov’t, should decide their best health practices. pic.twitter.com/M7iN4sLBJV
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Current vaccines in use in the United States have proven "partially and probably protective" against the B.1.617 coronavirus variant raging in India, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday.
"If you look at a number of studies, again, that have come out literally within the last few days, on each of them, the neutralization resistance to the 617 antibody suggests that the current vaccines that we are all using - that we’ve been speaking about - would be at least partially and probably quite protective," Fauci, who is member of the White House COVID-19 Response Team, said.
The B.1.617 coronavirus variant has become the dominant strain across India and has spread to about 40 nations, including the United Kingdom and Singapore. India is the second-worst coronavirus-infected country after the United States, with more than 25 million cases and over 258,000 virus-related deaths.
The United States has approved three coronavirus vaccines: a two-shot Moderna vaccine for individuals aged 18 and above, a two-shot Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for individuals aged 12 and above and a single-shot Johnson & Johnson-Janssen for individuals ages 18 and above.
Some 274 million coronavirus vaccines have been administered to Americans to date, with about 124 million, or 37.7 percent of the population, being "fully vaccinated" with two doses each.
"As things stand at the moment I can see nothing conclusive in the data that says we have to deviate from the roadmap, but we've got to be cautious," Johnson told reporters during a visit to a vaccination center in London.
The prime minister said, however, that authorities are closely observing all the data coming from Bolton, Blackburn, Bedford and other English cities where the so-called Indian strain has become prevalent.
"We´re just looking at those curves where they're moving, trying to understand whether the Indian variant is more transmissible and if so by how much more it is transmissible and also trying to understand to what extent our vaccine programme has already sufficiently fortified us all against it," he added.
"Over the past day, 8,183 coronavirus cases were confirmed across 84 Russian regions, including 1,186 cases (14.5 percent) without clinical symptoms", the federal response centre said, adding that the rate of increase fell to 0.17 percent.
"Russia is interested in cooperating with foreign partners in the fight against the global pandemic. We have managed to quickly develop three effective domestic vaccines against the coronavirus infection. A fourth one will soon enter circulation, and vaccination is gaining speed", Putin said.
