Covid-19 pandemic has infected more than 73.1 million people causing at least 1.6 million deaths around the world.
US deaths top 300,000 just as vaccinations begin
US death toll from the coronavirus has topped 300,000 just as the country began dispensing shots in a monumental campaign to conquer the outbreak.
The number of dead rivals the population of St. Louis or Pittsburgh. It is equivalent to repeating a tragedy on the scale of Hurricane Katrina every day for 5 1/2 months. It is more than five times the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. It is equal to a 9/11 attack every day for more than 100 days.
“The numbers are – the most impactful respiratory pandemic that we have experienced in over 102 years, since the iconic 1918 Spanish flu,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, said days before the milestone.
Canada administers first doses of vaccine
Canada has administered its first doses of a vaccine, becoming one of the first countries to do so in the effort to beat back the pandemic.
Five front-line workers in Ontario were among the first Canadians to receive the vaccine at one of Toronto’s hospitals.
Anita Quidangen, a personal support worker who worked throughout an outbreak at the Rekai Centre nursing home in Toronto, got the first dose in Ontario.
“It’s an honour, thank you very much,” she said. “I’ll continue to do my job as a PSW.”
South Korea warns of tougher restrictions if rules ignored
South Korean officials said the country will impose stricter social distancing rules for the greater Seoul area a month after easing them, warning of an even bigger crisis if anti-virus efforts fail to dampen a spike in new cases.
Tighter curbs will ban public gatherings of 100 people or more, limit religious services and audiences at sporting events to 30 percent capacity, and require high-risk facilities including clubs and karaoke bars to broaden distance among guests.
Germany pressuring EU to speed up vaccine approval
Germany has been pressuring EU authorities to speed up the approval of a vaccine as it battles a surge in infections and Britain and the US begin mass inoculations, reports said.
Angela Merkel’s office and Germany’s health ministry want the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to bring forward the approval date for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to December 23 from December 29, German newspaper Bild said, citing unnamed sources.
The delay in approval was raising questions over “the European Union’s ability to act,” Bild quoted a source as saying.
Argentina hits milestone
Argentina has now recorded 1.5 million cases of coronavirus, making it the ninth country in the world to reach the milestone.
The Latin American nation has managed to tame an explosion of cases, that reached a peak of 18,326 daily cases confirmed in October. It saw a steady decline in case numbers over recent weeks to 5,062 confirmed.
The Ministry of Health said there had been 1,503,222 people infected so far with Covid-19, 41,041 dead and 1,340,120 patients recovered from the disease.
S Korea sees 880 new cases
South Korea has reported 880 new coronavirus cases, as the daily numbers continue to hover at unprecedented levels, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.
The latest figure was up from 718 reported on Monday, a day after it hit a record daily spike of 1,030.
China reports 17 cases
Mainland China reported 17 new Covid-19 cases, up from 16 cases a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said.
The National Health Commission, in a statement, said 14 of the new cases were imported infections originating from overseas. An additional three locally transmitted cases were also reported, two in Heilongjiang province and one in Sichuan.
The number of new asymptomatic cases, not classified by China as confirmed cases, fell to eight from nine a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in China now stands at 86,758. The death toll remains unchanged at 4,634.
Mexico reports 345 more deaths
Mexico’s health ministry has reported 5,930 new cases of coronavirus and 345 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 1,255,974 cases and 114,298 deaths.
The government says the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
