Latest On Coronavirus

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd December, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 5.229 million, over 263.9 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 20:10 GMT Thursday, the number of cases globally is 263,932,665, including 5,229,748 fatalities. As many as 8.07 billion of vaccine doses have been administered to date.

The Bundestag will consider a proposal on mandatory vaccination in Germany, and it will be imposed since February if approved, acting German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

The Human Medicines Committee (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has begun a rolling review of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by France's Valnela, the agency announced.

The United Kingdom secured over 110 million shots of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines against the coronavirus to cover the immunization efforts for two years, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) gave green light to the use of sotrovimab, a COVID-19 monoclonal treatment which its manufacturer, the London-based multinational pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said "retains activity" against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

Italian drug regulator Aifa authorized the COVID-19 vaccination for children aged 5-11 years with the Comirnaty medicine developed by the companies of Pfizer and BioNTech.

The Greek government may consider extending a vaccine mandate to more groups if the need arises amid the spread of the new Omicron variant, spokesman Giannis Oikonomou said.

Nearly 100 firefighters in New Zealand cannot respond to emergency callouts as they have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 in compliance with the government's order, Radio New Zealand reported.

A group of Singaporean and British scientists has proposed a scalable cheap alternative to the existing PCR testing method using kits to increase the availability of timely and uninterrupted COVID-19 testing in lower income countries, according to research published in the journal Nature.

A team of UK and US scientists, some of them linked to AstraZeneca, say they may have found out how the pharma giant's COVID-19 vaccine can in very rare cases cause potentially deadly blood clots. The scientists found that the chimpanzee adenovirus used to shuttle viral material to a cell to train the immune system against COVID-19 has a negative surface potential which attracts the electropositive platelet factor four (PF4) protein like a magnet. When small quantities of the adenovirus leak into the bloodstream during the intramuscular COVID-19 injection there is a risk of them forming a complex with PF4 that the immune system confuses for a virus and attacks using special antibodies, which leads to clumps.

Russia has confirmed 33,389 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the cumulative total to 9,703,107, the federal response center said.

India has confirmed 9,765 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total number of those infected having reached 34,606,541, the country's ministry of health and family welfare said.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Brazil has increased by 11,413 to 22,105,872 within the past 24 hours, the national ministry of health said.

Russia will require travelers arriving from South Africa and neighboring countries to self-isolate for two weeks over coronavirus concerns, the national consumer rights watchdog said.

The European Council said it had removed Jordan and Namibia from the list of countries for which COVID-19 travel restrictions should be lifted by member states.

The German authorities agreed to toughen restrictive measures throughout the country, access to cultural events and retail stores, with the exception of food stores, will be only for those vaccinated or those recovered from COVID-19, acting German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

The outgoing German chancellor and her successor Olaf Scholz announced sweeping new restrictions for the unvaccinated and backed mandatory anti-coronavirus shots.

Around 2%, or 713,321 people, of the Polish population are quarantined due to the coronavirus, according to the data from the health ministry.

Cyprus says all passengers aged 12 years and over are obliged to test for COVID-19 upon their arrival in the country through January 10, 2022, as part of efforts to prevent the spread of the Omicron coronavirus strain, the Press and Information Office of Cyprus announced.

Citizens of eight African countries with an incidence of the new Omicron coronavirus strain, as well as people with recent travel history in these countries, will be barred from entering Ukraine starting December 3, the Ukrainian government said.

Lebanon will impose curfew for COVID-19 unvaccinated residents, Health Minister Firass Abiad said.

The Japanese Transport Ministry canceled its directive requiring suspension of new flight bookings to the country until late December, initially issued to prevent the spread of the Omicron strain of coronavirus, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said.

Global demand for cargos flown by air soared by more than 9 percent in October compared with the same month last year, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Geneva said.

African countries are working to preempt the spread of the Omicron coronavirus strain through more detection and control as weekly COVID-19 cases grew 54% due to a surge in the continent's south, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.