MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th October, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 4.91 million, almost 241.4 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.
As of 20:00 GMT Tuesday, the number of cases globally is 241,420,750, including 4,910,551 fatalities. As many as 6.69 billion of vaccine doses have been administered to date.
Moscow believes that the government has done an excellent job of providing all Russians with access to COVID-19 vaccines, and urged those citizens that remained hesitant to get vaccinated to be more responsible, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Russia is ready to open its market to foreign COVID-19 vaccines but only if other countries also recognize Russian vaccines on a mutual basis, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The second batch of Russia's Sputnik Light coronavirus vaccine may arrive in Nicaragua by the end of October, Pyotr Pankratov, the Russian trade representative in the country, told Sputnik.
Mexican state laboratory Birmex will begin bottling and packaging the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in the second half of November, Mexican media reported, citing the company's director, Pedro Zenteno.
Russia registered 33,740 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, down from 34,325 the day before, bringing the cumulative total to 8,060,752, the federal response center said.
Russia and the European Union are negotiating mutual recognition of COVID-19 vaccine certificates and discussing issues related to QR codes, Russia's Permanent Representative to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to take part in the G20 summit online instead of traveling to Rome because of the growing COVID-19 incidence, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sputnik.
The one-month lockdown that Latvia plans to impose later this week due to a surge in coronavirus cases may cost the country around 200 million Euros ($233 million), Finance Minister Janis Reirs said.
Russia spends an average of about 3.6 billion rubles ($50.7 million) a day on the fight against coronavirus, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said.
It is necessary to rethink the existing world order, favoring multipolar world and granting the Group of Twenty, the forum of 19 most influential nations and the European Union otherwise known as the G20, a leading role, to address post-pandemic challenges, former Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said.
