MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th December, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 5.326 million, over 271.8 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 Wednesday, the number of cases globally is 271,827,830, including 5,326,198 fatalities. As many as 8.54 billion of vaccine doses have been administered to date.
Russian President Vladimir Putin lauded close cooperation between Russia and China, particularly their concerted efforts to combat the pandemic, noting that China is fast becoming an international production center for Russian vaccines Sputnik V and Sputnik Light.
The Human Medicines Committee (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved Johnson & Johnson's vaccine against COVID-19 for use as a booster in adults two months after receiving the first dose.
The European Union is prepared to face "another Christmas in pandemic mode" with more than 66% of people vaccinated, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that 19 million vaccine booster doses had been injected into arms across the country, with the authorities hoping to push the number to 30 million by the end of the year.
French pharma giant Sanofi said that a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine booster produced jointly with its UK partner GlaxoSmithKline gave a good immune response during advanced human trials.
Two doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine provide a lower level of protection against the new Omicron variant than against the wild-type virus, while a booster significantly increases neutralizing titers, the company said.
A panel of the Japanese Health Ministry approved the use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine as a booster on Wednesday, the Kyodo news agency reported.
According to new data, effectiveness of existing vaccines is slightly decreasing amid the spread of the new COVID-19 Omicron variant across the globe, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Russia confirmed 28,363 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the cumulative total to 10,103,160, the federal response center said. The response center also reported 1,142 deaths linked to the coronavirus, bringing the country's death toll to 292,891.
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control predicted on Wednesday that Omicron would likely overtake Delta to become the dominant coronavirus strain in Europe in early 2022.
The Omicron strain of the coronavirus now accounts for about 60% of all COVID-19 infections in London, UK Health Minister Sajid Javid said.
The seven-day average of US daily deaths from COVID-19 is up 5% from the previous week amid a rise in cases caused by the Omicron variant of the virus that has been confirmed in 36 states, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said.
The global community has the means to fully overcome the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, Maria Van Kerkhove, the COVID-19 technical lead at World Health Organization (WHO), said.
Italy once again extended its COVID-19 state of emergency by three months until March 31, 2022, amid a rise in positive coronavirus cases and the emergence of the new Omicron strain, the country's council of ministers said in a statement.
The US Navy is going to separate active duty sailors who have not received vaccination against COVID-19 and those who continue to refuse to do so by the end of next November will be expelled from the service, the force's personnel chief said.
The Biden administration is confident schools in the United States will not be placed on lockdown as a result of the spread of the coronavirus Omicron variant, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
US State Secretary Antony Blinken called off his planned visit to Thailand, which was to become the final stop of this three-country tour, to mitigate COVID-19 risks after reports of a case among his traveling group, the US State Department said.
The coronavirus pandemic has taken its toll on Americans, with six in ten saying they feel warn out by pandemic-related changes in their daily lives during the past 20 months, a Monmouth University poll revealed.
An annual US survey of teen drug use dating back to 1975 showed teen use of marijuana, alcohol and vaped nicotine fell by the largest amounts ever recorded over the past year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said.
More than 375 million people in the Asia-Pacific region suffered from food insecurity last year, which is nearly 54 million more than in 2019, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and UNICEF said.
The coronavirus pandemic crisis and the measures implemented to address the pandemic have led to a record increase in the global debt to $226 trillion, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said.
The Biden administration will distribute an additional $9 billion to healthcare providers to cover pandemic-related losses, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said.
