Surging COVID-19 cases sharpen focus on vaccines
Novel coronavirus infections have surged in some parts of the world as winter kicks in, with countries plotting strategies to secure vaccines to protect their populations against COVID-19.
More than 66.4 million people have been reported to be infected by the virus globally and more than 1.53 million people have died, according to a Reuters tally.
US President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for COVID-19, the latest in a long string of people close to the White House to get infected.
Giuliani, 76, was admitted to the MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington on Sunday, US media reports said.
The White House has been criticized for shunning safety guidance during the pandemic. Trump caught COVID-19 in October and spent a few days in hospital.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced that more than half of the US state's 40 million people are subject to a stay-at-home order. Many businesses will be closed.
The Reuters tally showed more than 281,000 people have died from the disease in the US.
For the past two weeks, the US has regularly seen more than 2,000 deaths a day, similar to the early days of the pandemic. The surge could be partly due to last week's Thanksgiving holiday, when millions traveled around the country, the BBC said.
US President-elect Joe Biden, who is due to be sworn in on Jan 20, plans to nominate California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as secretary of health and human services and Rochelle Walensky, chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, to run the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Reuters reported.
Rising numbers
In Asia's worst-hit country, India's federal health ministry on Monday reported 32,981 new coronavirus cases in the last 24-hour span.
India's cumulative cases now total 9.68 million, the second-highest tally in the world after the United States, according to Reuters
South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday ordered testing for the virus to be expanded by mobilizing the military and more people from the public service, as the country continued to report daily new cases in the triple digits, Reuters reports.
Countries are strategizing to secure shots to protect their populations against COVID-19, with Britain and Russia beginning COVID-19 vaccinations this week.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced on Sunday the country has received 1.2 million doses from China's Sinovac Biotech and is working to secure another 1.8 million doses by early January, Bloomberg said.
The Serum Institute of India has sought emergency use authorization from India's drug regulator for AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine on Sunday, according to Indian media reports.
India is the largest buyer of COVID-19 vaccines in the world with 1.6 billion doses. The tally is 500 million doses of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate, 1 billion from the US company Novavax and 100 million doses of Sputnik V from Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute, said the US-based Duke University Global Health Innovation Center.
The South Asian country is followed by the European Union, which has confirmed 1.58 billion doses, and the United States, which has purchased just over a billion doses, according to Duke University's Launch and Scale Speedometer analysis.
The World Health Organization hopes to have half a billion vaccine doses through the COVAX facility in the first quarter of 2021.
COVAX is a global initiative led by the WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and international vaccine alliance organization Gavi that aims to bring governments and vaccine manufacturers together to ensure all countries have access to COVID-19 vaccines.
