MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th March, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 2.58 million, over 116 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.
Venezuela will start giving shorts of the Chinese Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine within days. Starting March 8, the Chinese vaccine will join Russia's Sputnik V on the list of shots available to Venezuelans. The country already has 500,000 doses of Sinopharm stockpiled.
Slovakia's prime minister refused to send a batch of Sputnik V back to Russia in spite of criticism by politicians and members of government. Despite opponents of the use of the Russian vaccine calling it an instrument of "hybrid warfare" and threatening to collapse the government over its approval of the vaccine, the prime minister took to Facebook to say that while the Russian side offered to take the recently delivered batch back, he would not yield to criticism and use it to save lives in Slovakia.
The European Union is planning to take up the matter of the bloc-wide AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine delivery delays with the help of the United States, the European Commission told the Financial Times on Saturday. According to the Financial Times, citing EU officials, Brussels will raise the issue during the upcoming transatlantic discussions.
US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci said on Saturday that the data from Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V "looked pretty good" to him. Asked about the side effects of vaccines under use in the United States � by Pfizer and Moderna � Fauci said the level of his concerns was "minimal." According to the official, both mRNA vaccines demonstrated from 94 percent - 95 percent efficacy in US trials while "the reactogenicity was minimum."
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo received their first COVID-19 vaccine jabs on Saturday, the president said. The president also called on Nigerian citizens to get vaccinated and protect themselves from COVID-19 and urged "all state governments, traditional and religious leaders" to lead the mobilization efforts.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores on Saturday received the first dose of Sputnik V, the Russian coronavirus vaccine, according to a broadcast on his Twitter account.
Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday that a consignment of Indian-made COVID-19 vaccines under the Vaccine Maitri initiative is arriving in Somalia.
Woman are slightly more likely than men to want to get a COVID-19 vaccine shot, according to the Moscow city health department. Since the start of the Russian capital's vaccination campaign in early December, 52 percent of those inoculated were women and 48 percent were men.
The Dalai Lama received the first shot of a coronavirus vaccine on Saturday, with sources in his office telling Sputnik that they used the Indian-made Covishield vaccine. The 85-year-old Tibetan leader was vaccinated at the Zonal Hospital in Dharamsala, a city in India's northern Himachal Pradesh state.
Almost 63,000 cases were registered in the US over the past day and almost 2,500 people died. The total is now at almost 29 million cases and over 522,000 deaths.
India has confirmed over 18,000 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total reaching over 11.1 million. The death toll reached over 157,000 people, with 108 new fatalities being recorded over the past day.
Russia's coronavirus tally has increased by 11,022 cases over the past 24 hours, slightly down from the 11,024 cases recorded the day before. The cumulative case count has now reached 4,312,181 cases. The death toll has reached 88,726, with an increase of 441 over the past day.
Saudi Arabia is set to lift some COVID-19 restrictions on Sunday. According to sources quoted by the state-run SPA news agency, starting March 7, only mass events, parties, weddings and corporate meetings will remain off limit and public gatherings will stay limited to 20 people.
In the US state of California, authorities plan to reopen theme parks and allow various public events. Baseball parks, stadiums and theme parks will be allowed to admit visitors and hold events starting April 1 albeit with limited capacity.
French police on Saturday dispersed Parisians who have gathered on the banks of the Seine river for violations of the COVID-19 restrictions. According to the department, those dispersed failed to respect such coronavirus measures as social distancing rules and the requirement to wear face masks.
Municipal elections in Finland are postponed from April until June because of the pandemic, Finnish Justice Minister Anna-Maja Henriksson said on Saturday. The Finnish municipal elections were scheduled for April 18. The Justice Ministry proposed the postponement to the party leaders on Friday.
The US economy could take as long as two years to get back on track with the current rate of jobs growth in the country, President Joe Biden said as he pushed for the passage of his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan. The president said his COVID-19 relief plan, which cleared the House of Representatives last week and is now seeking approval from the Senate before becoming law, was integral in getting the country back on track with personal checks of $1,400 for Americans and help for small businesses.
The majority of Canadian businesses are worried they might not survive the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the state statistics agency said. The concerns are most pronounced in the accommodation and food services industry, where a quarter of businesses says they could continue operations for less than 12 months in the current conditions before shuttering doors forever. More than 23 percent of arts, entertainment and recreation businesses said the same.
US federal agents at Chicago's O'Hare airport seized more than 65,000 3M N95 type masks which turned out to be counterfeit, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a release. CBP said the shipments arrived from Colombia and were en route to a company based in the US state of Virginia.
