MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th November, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 5.204 million, over 261.9 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 20:30 GMT Monday, the number of cases globally is 261,924,996, including 5,204,733 fatalities. As many as 7.63 billion of vaccine doses have been administered to date.
The likelihood of potential further spread of the new Omicron coronavirus strain at the global level is high, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
Most of the new coronavirus cases in Gauteng, the capital province of South Africa, are associated with the Omicron strain, which is spreading across the country, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
US top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci predicts that it will take about two weeks to get full data on the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the White House said.
The Gamaleya Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology has submitted documents to obtain permission to research a vaccine against coronavirus among children aged six to 11, the director of the center, Alexander Gintsburg, said.
The development of a vaccine against the omicron coronavirus strain will take no more than 10 days, another 45-50 days are needed for regulatory procedures, Gintsburg said.
A new version of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine adapted to the Omicron coronavirus variant is in development, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said.
Russia's Federal Biomedical Agency is ready very quickly, in a few days, to make a test system for detecting the omicron coronavirus strain, FMBA chief Veronika Skvortsova said.
Unequal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines will lead to the emergence of new coronavirus variants, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
The UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advised health authorities to extend the COVID-19 booster vaccine to all people aged 18, in an attempt to tackle the spreading of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus.
The development and production of a new vaccine against the Omicron coronavirus variant will take months, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC.
Pfizer has created a DNA template as part of its efforts to develop a vaccine that will specifically target the newly identified Omicron variant of the coronavirus, CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC.
BioNTech has started evaluating the new Omicron coronavirus variant and adopting its vaccine if the current version does not effectively respond to Omicron, the company said.
Johnson & Johnson said that it was starting the development of a new COVID-19 vaccine against the newly discovered variant Omicron while evaluating the effectiveness of its current single dose vaccine.
Merriam-Webster said it had chosen "vaccine" as the word of the year, one that went beyond its medical meaning to encapsulate debates about personal choice, political affiliation and much more.
China will ship an additional billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to African countries, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced.
The African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT), the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and COVAX urged international community to improve the quality of their donations of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa amid the emergence of the new Omicron strain.
Russia confirmed 33,860 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the cumulative total to 9,604,233, the federal response center said.
Poland will impose 14-day quarantine for all people who arrive from non-EU countries and ban flights from seven African countries over the Omicron coronavirus variant, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said.
More than 2,000 people took to the streets in the Czech capital on Sunday, protesting against fresh coronavirus restrictions, Czech tv reported.
The Indian Health Ministry made amendments Sunday to the guidelines for international arrivals introduced over a fortnight ago, due to the new Omicron coronavirus variant.
Chile's authorities have issued a ban on the entry of foreigners who have visited several southern African countries in the past two weeks over the new coronavirus strain, the country's health ministry said.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida says the easing of entry rules for foreigners introduced earlier this month is being cancelled and the border ban is being reinstated in order to prevent the spread of the Omicron coronavirus strain.
No OPEC+ countries have proposed so far to change the group's strategy in connection with the emergence of the new Omicron coronavirus strain, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said.
The reaction of the markets to the new Omicron coronavirus strain is purely emotional and is not based on any scientific data, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that he was deeply concerned about the travel restrictions imposed on southern African nations in an attempt to stem the spread of the coronavirus variant Omicron that was first identified in South Africa.
