Live Updates: Number of COVID-19 Cases in US Rises by Over 61,000 in 24 Hours With 1,769 New Deaths

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi has asked the French health authorities to greenlight the procurement of the Russian-developed Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine for the metropolitan area.

"I am able to quickly provide [the Nice region] with tens of thousands of doses of #SputnikV, the Russian vaccine used in more than 48 countries around the world. I ask the health authorities to give me permission! #FranceBleuAzur," Estrosi said on air the France Bleu Azur radio station on Friday, an excerpt of which was posted on Twitter.

When asked how he was going to carry on with his plan, the mayor stressed that Nice was an international hub with many connections, which was able to independently provide its residents with masks last spring, just when the pandemic was gaining its momentum all over the world.

"That is why I want more decentralization to give us powers that will allow us to be more efficient," Estrosi added.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Separate clinical trials of the Russian-developed Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine on cancer patients have started, Alexander Gintsburg, the head of the Gamaleya research institute, said on Saturday.

"Separate trials in oncology patients have already begun," Gintsburg told the SolovyovLive show on YouTube.

The virologist further noted that chemotherapy remained the only contraindication for the vaccination.

As for other cases, Gintsburg warned that people with severe allergies were not recommended to get inoculated.

"Only people who have a history of severe allergic complications, such as Quincke's edema or they had an anaphylactic shock for unknown reasons [are not recommended to be vaccinated]," the Gamaleya director said.

Mayor of Nice, France: I am able to deliver quickly for the @MetropoleNCA tens of thousands of doses of #SputnikV , the Russian vaccine used in more than 48 countries around the world. I ask the health authorities to give me permission! #FranceBleuAzur https://t.co/3dxkNDzR0X

— Sputnik V (@sputnikvaccine) March 13, 2021

Up to 70 percent of Russia's population will be vaccinated against COVID-19 by November, Alexander Gintsburg, the head of the Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, which has developed the Sputnik V vaccine, said on Saturday.

"I believe that by November, 70 percent of our population — albeit the pace of vaccination could be much faster — nevertheless, I believe that by November, 60-70 percent of people will be vaccinated. This problem, the infection, will become controllable inside the country by means of vaccination," Gintsburg told the SolovyovLive show on YouTube.

Moldova's Supreme Security Council has recommended that the government declare a two-week state of emergency over COVID-19, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said on Saturday.

Sandu convened the Supreme Security Council earlier in the day to discuss the epidemiological environment in the country.

"The majority of Security Council members recommend declaring a state of emergency for two weeks. The government received a recommendation to work out a list of restrictions within the next three days," Sandu said at a briefing.

The Moldovan president expressed support for the council's initiative to reshuffle the national public health commission to include doctors and virologists, as well as to create a unified command centre at the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations.

"We need to accelerate the vaccination and begin the second phase. We need to create an online register for citizens to sign up for vaccination. I ask the government to work out in detail and present these initiatives to parliament within the next three days," Sandu said.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the US has increased by 61,204, with 1,769 new fatalities, the Johns Hopkins University said. 

Leaders of Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Slovenia have sent a letter to the heads of the European Commission and Council, calling for a discussion of disparities in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines, according to the letter circulated by media.

On Friday, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz voiced his concern that some EU countries may have inked "secret contracts" with vaccine manufacturers to receive extra doses. On the same day, Kurz and his four counterparts sent the letter to European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, claiming that "deliveries of vaccine doses by pharma companies to individual EU member states are not being implemented on an equal basis."

"If this system were to carry on, it would continue creating and exacerbating huge disparities among member states by this summer, whereby some would be able to reach herd immunity in a few weeks while others would lag far behind," the letter published on Saturday read.

The five leaders then called for an immediate discussion on the matter.

Kurz on Friday addressed the issue of the so-called bazaars where some member states made additional agreements with vaccine companies, which according to Brussels, was up to the member states to "ask less or more of a given vaccine." According to the Austrian chancellor, Malta, for example, should receive three times more doses of vaccines by June than Bulgaria based on the per capita estimates.

More than 6,300 COVID-19 cases were registered in the Netherlands in the past 24 hours, making it the highest level since the middle of January, the National Institute for Health said. 

UK-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company AstraZeneca has confirmed a shortfall in shipments of its COVID-19 vaccine to the European Union.

"AstraZeneca is disappointed to announce a shortfall in planned COVID-19 vaccine shipments to the European Union (EU) despite working tirelessly to accelerate supply," the company said in a official statement published on Friday.

The firm explains that the shortfall is due to " lower-than-expected output from the production process" and added that they are ready to compensate for part of the shortfall with vaccines from the international supply network.

AstraZeneca aims to provide  the European Union with 100 million doses in the first half of the year, 30 million of which are due to be delivered in the first quarter.

The COVID-19 vaccine by AstraZeneca has been recently making headlines as a specific batch of the vaccines was linked to blood clot concerns. In a media briefing on Friday, World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that a full investigation was underway.

India has registered 24,882 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, reaching the highest single-day spike so far this year, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday.

Over this period, India also reported 140 deaths linked to the virus bringing the total number of fatalities to 158,446.

The surge in COVID-19 cases reported on Saturday is almost 7 percent higher than the previous day's number making the total number of the country's caseload reach over two million people and the recovery rate dropping by 96.82 percent.

After witnessing a reduced number of cases in the last few months, the infections have once again spiked in several parts of the country.

“Five states cumulatively account for 82.96 per cent of the total active cases in the country. Two states – Maharashtra and Kerala- account for 71.69 per cent of India’s total active cases,” the Health Ministry said as cited by the Hindustan Times.

In an attempt to combat the fast spread of the infection, authorities have implemented restrictions and pushed the COVID-19 vaccination drive in the country with full force.

The health ministry said that over 2.8 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered so far and around 20.5 million doses were given in the last 24 hours.

India is currently at the third position in the world in total cases.

The Philippine government declared the discovery of a new coronavirus strain in the country, the Department of Health (DOH) reported on Saturday, as cited by media.

According to the DOH, the variant was detected after the health authorities traced and analyzed 85 coronavirus cases “with unique set of mutations.”

"We were waiting for them [the Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak Lineages tool] to let us know if this is unique to the Philippines or was already discovered in other countries. They've come back to us and told us it really is a new variant," Anna Ong-Lim, member of the DOH technical advisory group said at an online briefing, as cited by CNN Philippines.

According to the DOH, the coronavirus mutation was named P.3, and 98 cases associated with this variant has been registered across the Philippines so far. However, the authorities need more information on the variant to evaluate its contagion and death risks.

The media outlet said that in February the Japanese Ministry of Health reported a case of a new strain in a man, aged 60, who arrived in Tokyo from the Philippines. He reportedly showed no symptoms of the disease.

Russia registered 9,908 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, up from 9,794 the day before, taking the overall tally to 4,380,525, the coronavirus response centre said on Saturday.

"Over the past day, 9,908 coronavirus cases were confirmed across 85 Russian regions, including 1,279 cases (12.9 percent) without clinical symptoms," the centre said, adding that the cumulative case count has now reached 4,380,525, with the rate of increase at 0.23 percent.

Moscow confirmed 1,600 new coronavirus cases over the given period, down from 1,610 the day before. The Russian capital was followed by St. Petersburg with 943 new cases, down from 957 the day before, and the Moscow Region with 609 new cases, up from 476 on Friday.

The response centre reported 475 COVID-19 fatalities, down from 486 the day before, raising the country's death toll to 91,695.

Total recoveries increased by 12,868 over the given period, down from 13,496 the day before, and reached 3,985,897.

India has confirmed 24,882 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total number of those infected having reached 11,333,728, the country's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday.

The death toll from the disease has reached 158,446 people, with 140 new fatalities being recorded over the past day. More than 10.97 million people have recovered in India since the start of the outbreak.

A day earlier, the country confirmed 23,285 new coronavirus cases, with 117 fatalities.

India comes third in terms of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, following the United States and Brazil, with more than 29.34 million and 11.36 million COVID-19 patients, respectively.