MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th December, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 5.277 million, over 267.6 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 20:15 GMT Wednesday, the number of cases globally is 267,644,234, including 5,277,228 fatalities. As many as 8.28 billion of vaccine doses have been administered to date.
The UK marked on Wednesday one year since becoming the first country in the world to deploy an approved vaccine against COVID-19, but the anniversary came amid fears that the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus could evade the protection offered by the vaccines.
Antibody measurements shortly after people were vaccinated against COVID-19 revealed the potential for speedier clinical trials of new vaccine candidates with fewer participants, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said.
A federal district court judge from the Southern District of Georgia issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday delaying the Biden administration vaccine mandate for federal contractors from taking effect.
Three doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine will be able to neutralize the Omicron strain, while two doses may be not enough to develop immunity, Pfizer said.
More than 100 million Japanese have had at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, with vaccination thus reaching 79% of approximately 126 million Japanese, the Kyodo news agency reported, citing Wednesday's data from the government website.
Russia has confirmed 30,752 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the cumulative total to 9,895,597, the federal response center said.
The new Omicron coronavirus variant may become dominant in Europe by early January, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its weekly report.
The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health said that 12,598 new cases of coronavirus infection have been detected over the past day, marking a record daily increase in cases since the start of the pandemic.
The Slovak government has decided to alleviate the COVID-19 lockdown for those who have been vaccinated or recovered from the disease, Prime Minister Eduard Heger said.
The head of the International Air Transport Association accused national governments of overreacting after countries brought back travel curbs in response to the Omicron coronavirus strain.
The spread of the new COVID-19 Omicron variant may provoke a decrease in oil demand in the short-run, if it turns out to be more severe than previous variants and triggers the necessity to introduce lockdowns, Dr. SSV Ramakumar, the director of research and development on the board of Indian Oil Corporation, told Sputnik.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologized "unreservedly" after a video clip showed his staff at Number 10 Downing Street joking about a Christmas party that was allegedly celebrated last year in breach of COVID-19 lockdown rules, and pledged to take disciplinary action if rules were broken.
The European Union allocated on Wednesday a new grant of 100 million Euros ($113 million) to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to support COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in 12 African countries.
