Washington: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a standstill. Here are the latest updates on the coronavirus crisis from around the globe on Tuesday.
The overall number of global coronavirus cases has topped 85.6 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 1.85 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Tuesday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 85,637,904 and 1,852,079, respectively.
The US is the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 20,805,262 and 353,371, respectively, according to the CSSE.
India comes in second place in terms of cases at 10,340,469, while the country's death toll soared to 149,649.
The other countries with more than a million confirmed cases are Brazil (7,753,752), Russia (3,226,758), the UK (2,721,622), France (2,717,059), Turkey (2,255,607), Italy (2,166,244), Spain (1,958,844), Germany (1,796,216), Colombia (1,686,131), Argentina (1,648,940), Mexico (1,455,219), Poland (1,322,947), Iran (1,249,507), Ukraine (1,113,349), South Africa (1,111,631), and Peru (1,019,475), the CSSE figures showed.
Brazil currently accounts for the second highest number of fatalities at 196,561.
The countries with a death toll above 20,000 are Mexico (127,757), Italy (75,680), the UK (75,547), France (65,549), Russia (58,203), Iran (55,650), Spain (51,078), Colombia (44,187), Argentina (43,634), Peru (37,830), Germany (34,969), South Africa (30,011), Poland (29,161), Indonesia (22,911) and Turkey (21,685).
NY confirms first case of new Covid-19 variant
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that a laboratory has confirmed the state's first case of the new Covid-19 variant, which was first discovered in Britain last month.
"An individual from Saratoga County, New York, tested positive for the strain. The individual had no known travel history," Xinhua news agency quoted the Governor as saying in an official statement on Monday.
"It's a gentleman who is in his 60s. He was symptomatic, but he is on the mend and he's doing better. He did not travel recently, so this suggests that it's in the community, it was community spread as opposed to having travelled to the UK," he said in the statement.
"If you went to the N. Fox Jewelers store in Saratoga Springs from December 18 through December 24 (2020) you should contact us and get a test immediately.
"From a public health point of view now it's about contact tracing, and this UK strain is reported to be 70 per cent more contagious than the normal Covid strain. So, we want to make sure we're doing everything we can to do effective contact tracing on this case," he added.
The test was conducted at the Wadsworth Center, the research-intensive public health laboratory of the New York State Department of Health (DoH) located in Albany.
Russia adds 23,351 Covid-19 cases
Russia recorded 23,351 more Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, down from 24,150 a day earlier, the country's Covid-19 response center said Monday.
The national tally of Covid-19 cases has increased to 32,60,138, including 58,988 deaths and 26,40,036 recoveries, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Moscow, Russia's worst-hit region, reported 3,591 new cases over the past day, taking the city's total caseload to 8,28,570.
Spain reports over 30K new Covid-19 cases during New Year period
Spain's Ministry of Health on Monday reported 30,579 new coronavirus cases and 241 deaths during the New Year period between December 31 and January 4.
The country now has a total of 19,58,844 cases since the start of the pandemic, while 51,078 people have lost their lives to the virus, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Meanwhile, the incidence of the virus has risen to 272 cases per 1,00,000 inhabitants over the past 14 days, considerably higher than the level of 180 cases per 1,00,000 inhabitants at the start of December, according to the ministry.
Health Minister Salvador Illa warned that the impact of the pandemic is in an upward trend in Spain, asking the citizens to be responsible.
"We still have some difficult weeks. Until a significant part of the population is immunised, we must be very careful," he told a press conference.
As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in some countries with the already-authorised coronavirus vaccines. Spain began its vaccination program on December 27.