MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd January, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 1.821 million and over 83.6 million cases of the infection were detected, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University, which tracks and compiles data from Federal and local authorities, media and other sources.
As of 18:00 GMT Friday, the number of cases globally is 83,689,541, including 1,821,183 fatalities.
The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with 19,990,390, including 346,043 fatalities.
Israel has vaccinated one million people against COVID-19, which is over 10 percent of its more than 9.2 million residents, the government said.
The Indian Health Ministry has approved the emergency use of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, which is produced jointly with Serum Institute of India and known as Covishield, government sources told Sputnik.
Ecuador has doubled its order for the vaccine against the coronavirus developed by Pfizer and BioNTech companies up to four million doses, Health Minister Juan Carlos Zevallos said.
German biotechnology company BioNTech's CEO Ugur Sahin has said that the company cooperates with its US partner Pfizer to boost the production of their vaccine against COVID-19, and is looking for new partners to expand production capacity.
Russia has registered 27,039 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, down from 27,747 the day before, bringing the total to 3,186,336, the federal response center said.
India has confirmed 20,035 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total number of those infected having reached 10,286,709, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said, adding that India had registered 29 cases of the new strain of the coronavirus, previously found in the UK.
Slovakia has registered 6,315 new coronavirus cases within the past 24 hours marking the largest daily increase since the start of the outbreak, the national Ministry of Health said.
French government spokesman Gabriel Atta has said that the country will enforce the COVID-19 related curfew two hours earlier in 15 departments, including Alpes-Maritimes, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Saone-et-Loire and Moselle, which have been hit hardest by the pandemic. According to the spokesman, the new curfew will begin in these departments at 6 p.m. starting Saturday.
Estonia has resumed air traffic with the United Kingdom, the country's government said. All the passengers arriving from the UK should present a negative result of a COVID-19 test passed within 72 hours ahead of their arrival to Estonia or take the test upon landing. Furthermore, the passengers, arriving from the UK, should self-isolate for 14 days.
South Korea will demand negative COVID-19 tests from foreign citizens arriving in the country per plane starting from next Friday, the Yonhap news agency said, adding that the foreigners should make polymerase chain reaction (PCR) coronavirus test within 72 hours before their arrival in South Korea.
