MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th September, 2020) India has broken the world record for the single-largest daily increase in positive tests for COVID-19 for the second day in a row, as some 97,570 new positive tests were confirmed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday.
According to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, the global COVID-19 case total as of 17:30 GMT on Saturday stands at 28.5 million, and 916,670 people have died after testing positive for the disease.
After breaking the world's single-day record, India has now registered more than 4.65 million cases of COVID-19. India has the world's second-highest case total, trailing only the United States, which has registered in excess of 6.4 million positive tests.
In Brazil, 899 people have died due to complications from COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, taking the country's total death toll to 130,474. The death toll in Mexico has also risen by 534 over the past day to 70,183 in total. Brazil and Mexico have a coronavirus disease case total, as of Saturday, of 4.29 million and 658,299, respectively.
Fears of a second wave are continuing in Europe, as the United Kingdom reported 3,497 new positive tests over the past 24 hours. This was slightly below Friday's rise of 3,539, the largest single-day increase to the country's case total since May.
The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced on Saturday that it has resumed the clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine, after receiving permission from UK health regulators, following a pause triggered by a sudden illness in one of the participants.
AstraZeneca halted all global trials of its vaccine, which is being developed in cooperation with the University of Oxford, on September 6.
Speaking later on Saturday, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriev, said that the disrupted trials of AstraZeneca's vaccine had exposed the risks associated with the pharmaceutical firm's reliance on unverified technologies. Dmitriev underlined that Russia finds this approach unacceptable.
When developing the Sputnik V vaccine, Russian specialists used well-studied and verified human adenoviral vectors, unlike many producers in Western Europe and the United States, Dmitriev said.
The Russian Embassy in Skopje has told Sputnik that the North Macedonian authorities are exploring the possibility of purchasing Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, which has been developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology and produced jointly with the RDIF.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, the Russian Ministry of Health announced that the first batch of Sputnik V vaccines had been dispatched to Russia's regions.
Health Minister Mikhail Murashko later told reporters that all Russian regions can expect to receive supplies of the Russian-made vaccine against the coronavirus disease by Monday.
As of 03:00 GMT on Saturday, travelers arriving in England and Northern Ireland from Portugal, Hungary, French Polynesia, and Reunion must spend a mandatory period of 14 days in quarantine. On the other hand, arrivals from Sweden are no longer required to isolate, according to new guidance issued by the Department of Transport.
The governor of the Cuban capital of Havana, Reinaldo Garcia Zapata, has prolonged the coronavirus-linked curfew in the city until September 30 amid the unfavorable epidemiological situation. Cuba has confirmed 4,593 COVID-19 cases so far, with 106 fatalities.
In Chile, President Sebastian Pinera has decided to extend the country's coronavirus-related state of catastrophe for 90 days, the presidential office said. The South American country has confirmed more than 432,000 positive tests for the disease to date, including more than 2,100 new cases over the past day.
