MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th December, 2021) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 5.382 million, over 277.7 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 277,786,548, including 5,382,436 fatalities. As many as 8.85 billion of vaccine doses have been administered to date.
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that mutual COVID-19 vaccines recognition was essential to effectively reign in the pandemic.
People in Russia should understand the need for vaccination against COVID-19, but there should be no prosecution for a refusal to be vaccinated, Putin said.
Scientists from the Russian consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor have developed a test effective in both detecting the coronavirus and identifying the Omicron strain, Rinat Maksyutov, the director of the Russian State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology Vector, said.
The pilot batches of the Sputnik V and Sputnik Light coronavirus vaccines have been produced in Belarus as part of a joint project between Minsk and Moscow, the Belarusian Health Ministry said.
Russia and Syria created a working group to localize the production of a Russian coronavirus vaccine in Syria, Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry's National Defense Control Center, said.
Venezuela will begin booster vaccinations with Russia's Sputnik Light vaccine on January 3, as the medicine has shown high efficacy against the COVID-19 Omicron strain, President Nicolas Maduro said.
A COVID-19 vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, significantly increases antibody levels against the Omicron coronavirus variant, the vaccine maker said.
Scientists from the University of Hong Kong said that a booster dose of the Comirnaty vaccine against the coronavirus jointly developed by Pfizer and BioNTech companies provides a high level of protection from the Omicron strain of the coronavirus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is looking into whether a third dose of a vaccine for the novel coronavirus is required for a person to be considered "fully vaccinated," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said.
The US food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that it had granted an emergency use authorization for Merck's antiviral pill Molnupiravir used to treat COVID-19 patients.
The United States will have more than 250,000 courses of Pfizer's COVID-19 pill available by January, the White House said after US health authorities granted emergency use authorization for the world's first oral treatment against the novel coronavirus.
The African Union's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will begin encouraging member states to consider compulsory vaccination against COVID-19 to raise extremely low vaccination rates, CDC Director John Nkengasong said.
Russia confirmed 25,667 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the cumulative total to 10,318,650, the federal response center said. The response center also reported 1,002 deaths linked to the coronavirus, bringing the country's death toll to 301,271.
Mortality in Russia is increasing amid the COVID-19 pandemic and demographic problems are being aggravated, President Vladimir Putin said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized vaccine skeptics, saying that herd immunity to COVID-19 in the country was slightly under 60%, saying that it was "low" and that Russians needed at least an 80% herd immunity to be safe from the virus.
The US seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases has increased by a quarter to nearly 150,000 amid the growing prevalence of the Omicron variant of the virus, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said.
India has confirmed 7,495 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total number of those infected having reached 34,765,976, the country's health ministry said.
Wearing of masks on the streets will again become mandatory in Spain, the government said.
A curfew imposed by the Catalan government, among other restrictions, due to the deteriorating epidemiological situation is lawful, the High Court of Catalonia said.
Northern Ireland will impose restrictions the day after Christmas to curb spread of the Omicron coronavirus strain, which now accounts for over 40% of COVID-19 infections in the country, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Michelle O'Neill said.
German airline Lufthansa cancels about 10%, or 33,000, of its flights in the winter schedule due to the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, the head of the concern Carsten Spohr said in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung.
Hockey Canada expressed disappointment over the National Hockey League's decision to skip the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, but said it supports this measure due to COVID-19 uncertainty.
The US Supreme Court agreed to hear lawsuits challenging the Biden administration's coronavirus vaccine mandate for companies with more than 100 employees as well as for healthcare facilities, according to a court order list.
