The total number of global coronavirus cases on Saturday exceeded 80 million, as countries around the world are experiencing outbreaks of the disease in the midst of the holiday season.
According data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, around 472,000 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded on Christmas Day worldwide, with the number of deaths from the virus now at more than 1.75 million.
The US far surpasses other countries in the number of total cases, with more than 18.8 million infections as of Saturday. The USA is followed by India with almost 10.2 million cases and Brazil, which registered 7.4 million infections.
The United States also leads the world in coronavirus-related deaths with more than 330,000, followed by Brazil with 190,488 and India with 147,343.
The gloomy milestone comes when some countries are battling a new strain of the virus that British scientists have found this week to be 56 percent more contagious than the original.
The first reported cases of the new strain were found in the United Kingdom, leading several European countries and others around the world to limit travel abroad.
On Saturday, Japan announced that would be temporarily ban non-resident foreigners entering the country, citing the risk of the new COVID-19 strain.
Japanese officials have confirmed that a more contagious strain of the UK virus has entered the country, with the first cases detected involving passengers from Britain.
Despite outbreaks of coronavirus infections and deaths, vaccine approval in several countries could signal an end to the pandemic.
Modern Pharmaceutical Company said in a statement on Wednesday that his vaccine will likely be able to protect people from the new highly infectious strain, adding that he planned to run tests to confirm the vaccine’s effectiveness.
So far, the Food and Drug Administration has approved the Modern 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 health professionals and other frontline workers.
Several public figures and elected officials, including Vice President Pence and President-elect Joe Biden, received the vaccine publicly to promote public confidence in the safety of the vaccine.
European Union countries have started receiving their first shipments of a COVID-19 vaccine this weekend before a major rollout planned for Sunday
Efforts will be underway on Sunday to vaccinate populations at risk and medical workers in some of the countries that suffered the impact of the first wave of the virus this spring, including the Czech Republic, Italy and Spain, The Associated Press reported.