The coronavirus is spreading worldwide. A new, highly infectious variant was first reported in the UK. It has now been detected in the US, India and Latin America. As of December 29, the new virus had been reported in 20 countries on the continents Europe and Asia, the Middle East, Canada and Australia. Many countries tighten travel restrictions despite the holiday season.
The EU Health Agency has warned that this new virus is more infectious than the COVID-19 variant, and will increase hospitalizations and mortality if it infects more people.
Concerns over a new virus version have grown since the UK announced the lockdown of London and the South East England a week ago due to rapid spread of a virus of a different type. This new virus was discovered in September.
As the virus spreads around the globe, people are left with no choice but to modestly welcome the New Year, including in New York City, Rio de Janeiro and Sydney.
There is hope that several vaccines will become widely available to the public by spring and summer 2021. The British government announced that on December 30, the Medical and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency had authorized the use of a new vaccine developed by Oxford University Science. This is the second vaccine introduced in the UK. AstraZeneca has supplied Britain with 100 million doses, enough to vaccinate fifty million people. Since the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine received the green light in the UK this month, more than 600,000.
Over 82 million cases of COVID have been reported worldwide, and there are nearly 1,8 millions deaths.
By Nini Dakhundaridze
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