The total number of global coronavirus cases surpassed 80 million on Saturday, as countries around the world experience flooding of the disease in the middle of the holiday season.
Seconds data collected by Johns Hopkins University, nearly 472,000 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded on Christmas Day worldwide, and the death toll from the virus now stands at more than 1.75 million.
The United States far surpasses other countries in the total number of cases with more than 18.8 million infections as of Saturday. The United States is followed by India with nearly 10.2 million cases and Brazil, which has recorded 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 milestone comes when some countries are battling a new strain of the virus that British scientists found 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 countries and other countries in the world to limit travel abroad.
On Saturday, Japan announced it he would do so temporarily prohibition non-resident foreign nationals entering the country and mention the risk of the new COVID-19 strain.
Japanese officials confirmed that a more contagious strain of the UK virus had entered the country, with the first cases detected involving passengers arriving from Britain.
Despite the rise in coronavirus infections and deaths, the approval of vaccines in several countries could indicate an end to the pandemic.
Modern pharmaceutical company he 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 do tests to confirm the vaccine’s effectiveness.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has so far 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 front-line workers.
Several public figures and elected officials, including Vice President Pence and President-elect Joe Biden, have received the vaccine publicly to promote public confidence in the safety of inoculation.
The countries of the European Union began receiving the first shipments of a COVID-19 vaccine this weekend before a mass deployment scheduled for Sunday.
Efforts will be made Sunday to vaccinate at-risk populations and medical workers in some of the countries that experienced the weight of the first wave of the virus this spring, including the Czech Republic, Italy and Spain The Associated Press reported.