The novel coronavirus has infected more than 60 million people and cut short over 1.4 million lives. Here are the updates for November 26:
Sudan’s Mahdi dies
Leading Sudanese politician and former prime minister Sadiq Al Mahdi has died in hospital in the United Arab Emirates after being infected with coronavirus, family sources said early on Thursday.
Mahdi, 84, was Sudan’s last democratically elected prime minister and was overthrown in 1989 in the military coup that brought former president Omar Al Bashir to power.
Mexico sees over 850 fatalities
Mexico’s health ministry has reported 10,335 additional cases of the novel coronavirus and 858 more deaths in the country, bringing the official number of infections to 1,070,487 and the death toll to 103,597.
Brazil adds over 650 deaths
Brazil has reported 47,898 new cases of the coronavirus and 654 additional deaths over the past 24 hours, the country’s health ministry said.
South Korea adds 500 new cases
South Korea has reported 500 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the highest since March, the Yonhap news agency said citing Health Minister Park Neung-hoo.
Germany to extend partial lockdown until Dec 20
Germany will extend restrictive measures imposed early this month under a month-long “lockdown light” to slow the spread of the coronavirus until December 20, Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
“The exponential growth of infection numbers has been broken, the steep curve has become a flattened curve,” Merkel said after talks with leaders of Germany’s federal states on Wednesday.
“But infection numbers remain at a level that is far too high. The situation doesn’t allow us to lift the measures agreed for November.”
AstraZeneca admits manufacturing error
AstraZeneca and Oxford University have acknowledged a manufacturing error that is raising questions about preliminary results of their experimental Covid-19 vaccine.
A statement describing the error came days after the company and the university described the shots as “highly effective” and made no mention of why some study participants didn’t receive as much vaccine in the first of two shots as expected.
In a surprise, the group of volunteers that got a lower dose seemed to be much better protected than the volunteers who got two full doses. In the low-dose group, AstraZeneca said, the vaccine appeared to be 90 percent effective.
In the group that got two full doses, the vaccine appeared to be 62 percent effective. Combined, the drug makers said the vaccine appeared to be 70 percent effective. But the way in which the results were arrived at and reported by the companies has led to pointed questions from experts.
