MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th February, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 2.387 million, over 108 million cases of 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.
The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with over 27.5 million cases, including 481,685 fatalities.
The University of Oxford will test the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine it developed together with the UK-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca in children as young as six. Phase 2 trials will see 300 volunteers aged up to 17 injected with either the anti-coronavirus vaccine or a control shot against meningitis, which produces similar reactions. The first vaccinations are expected to take place later this month.
The Biden administration is concerned Russia and China are trying to make diplomatic progress with the global distribution of their coronavirus vaccines, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday.
The White House has concerns about whether China duly communicated raw data on the coronavirus to the World Health Organization, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Saturday.
Nearly 60 percent of Canadians condemned the Trudeau government's COVID-19 vaccination program as a failure, an Angus Reid Institute poll revealed.
The Panamanian authorities are holding negotiations with Russia about possible deliveries of the Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus to the Latin American country, the Russian Embassy in Panama told Sputnik.
The first doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus arrived in Venezuela on Saturday.
Amendments to Japan's law on infectious diseases and law on special COVID-19 measures entered into force on Saturday, making violations punishable with fines. The amended law on infectious diseases provides for fines reaching up to 500,000 Yen ($4,700) for the refusal to be hospitalized or flight from hospital, and up to 300,000 yen for the refusal to cooperate with contact tracers or the provision of false information. Additionally, the amendments make it mandatory for businesses to provide estate to local authorities, if asked, for the arrangement of extra hospital beds.
The Brazilian strain of the coronavirus is three times more contagious than the standard SARS-Cov-2 but vaccines are still effective against it, Brazilian Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said.
Chinese officials refused to give experts part of a World Health Organization (WHO) mission to the city of Wuhan access to data on early COVID-19 cases, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reports on Friday, citing members of the WHO team. According to the newspaper, Chinese officials turned down requests for data on 174 early cases of COVID-19 that were identified in late 2019. Instead, WHO experts were given summaries and analyses provided by their Chinese counterparts, the newspaper said.
Head of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) Andrea Ammon believes that COVID-19 is likely to remain with mankind despite the current decrease in the number of new cases and the start of the mass vaccination. In her interview with Agence France-Presse Ammon called on the European to remain vigilant as the virus "seems very well adapted to humans" and may even make experts tweak vaccines as in case of those against the seasonal flu.
Iranian Health Minister Saeid Namaki sounded the alarm on Saturday over the progressive spread of the UK coronavirus variant, which the local authorities fear is more infectious than declared by UK experts.
