The total number of global coronavirus cases on Saturday exceeded 80 million, as countries around the world face increases in the disease during the holiday season.
Conformable data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, approximately 472,000 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded on Christmas Day globally, with more than 1.75 million deaths from the virus.
The United States far surpasses other countries in the total number of cases with more than 18.8 million infections since Saturday. The US is followed by India with almost 10.2 million cases and Brazil, which has recorded 7.4 million infections.
The United States also leads the world in coronavirus-related deaths by more than 330,000, followed by Brazil at 190,488 and India at 147,343.
The bleak landmark comes as some countries are now battling a new strain of the virus that British scientists discovered this week 56 percent more contagious than the original.
The first reported cases of the new strain were found in the United Kingdom, causing several European and other countries around the world to limit travel abroad.
On Saturday, Japan announced this it would be temporary prohibit non-resident aliens upon entering the country, citing the risk of the new COVID-19 strain.
Japanese officials have confirmed that a more contagious strain of the virus from the UK has entered the country, with the first cases detected involving passengers arriving from the UK.
Despite the increase in coronavirus infections and deaths, the approval of vaccines in several countries could signal a possible end to the pandemic.
Modern pharmaceutical company he said in a statement On Wednesday, his vaccine will likely be able to protect people from the new highly infectious strain, adding that he planned to perform tests to confirm the vaccine’s effectiveness.
The US Food and Drug Administration has so far approved the Moderna vaccine, as well as the candidate developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for emergency use. Millions of doses of these vaccines have already been distributed to healthcare professionals and other frontline workers.
Several public figures and elected officials, including Vice President Pence and President-elect Joe Biden, received the public vaccine to promote public confidence in the safety of inoculation.
The countries of the European Union have begun receiving their first COVID-19 vaccine transfers this weekend ahead of the massive launch scheduled for Sunday.
Efforts will be underway on Sunday to vaccinate at-risk populations and health care workers in some countries that experienced the hardest first wave of the virus this spring, including the Czech Republic, Italy and Spain The Associated Press reported.