Number of infected people growing worldwide, Moscow begins vaccination

(Patria) - Moscow yesterday began vaccinating medical and teaching staff exposed to the risk of infection with the new coronavirus, which has flared up again in the United States, more than a week after the Thanksgiving celebration.

Social workers, medical staff, and teachers were vaccinated with Sputnik V on Saturday at seventy vaccination centers opened in the Russian capital.

Great Britain is also preparing to start its vaccination campaign, and among the first recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which received approval from the British authorities these days, will be Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen, who is 94 years old, and her husband Philip, 99, will be among the first due to their age, not royal honors, writes the Mail on Sunday newspaper.

Global pharmaceutical companies are competing to be the first in the search for the holy grail that will save humanity from the pandemic that has already claimed 1.5 million lives worldwide: 51 vaccine candidates are currently being tested on humans, and thirteen are in the final phase of testing, the World Health Organization announced.

However, the epidemic is spreading while several vaccines await approval. The US reported the highest number of new infections in 24 hours for the third day in a row on Saturday, with 229,889 new cases and 2527 deaths.

The US has been struggling with a sharp increase in the number of infected people for several weeks, and health authorities expect a new spread of the epidemic.

Neighboring Canada surpassed the threshold of 400,000 infected on Friday, just over two weeks after having 300,000, which indicates a sharp acceleration of the pandemic.

More than 65.8 million people have been infected in the coronavirus pandemic, and 12,177 people died on Friday alone.

Since November 24, more than 10,000 people have died every day worldwide, which has not been seen since the beginning of the pandemic. The epidemic is spreading in Italy, and Latin America and the Caribbean had an 18 percent increase in cases in seven days.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for caution amid optimism due to the expected arrival of vaccines.