Live Updates: India Registers 132,788 New COVID-19 Cases

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday that it has reached an agreement with vaccine manufacturer Moderna to supply their international vaccination efforts against the novel coronavirus.

"Through the supply agreement, UNICEF, along with procurement partners including the PanAmerican Health Organization (PAHO), will have access to up to 34 million doses of the vaccine for around 92 countries and territories in 2021," UNICEF said.

The vaccines will be supplied to UNICEF’s COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) facility. The goal of the COVAX facility is to help provide access to vaccines to all participating countries and territories regardless of income level.

UNICEF said the vaccines are expected to be delivered in the final quarter of 2021 and will be allocated in a way that reflects the program’s value of equity in access.

UNICEF also noted that it has signed four other supply deals for coronavirus vaccines, including agreements with the Serum Institute of India, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Human Vaccine.

About 20 percent of Americans worshiped in a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple in the past week, a rebound attributed to falling COVID-19 limits as vaccinations increase, a Gallup poll said on Wednesday.

Another 10 percent said they attended a service remotely, a press release explaining the poll said.

"Twenty percent of U.S. adults report that they have attended a place of worship in person in the past week and another 10% say they have participated virtually," Gallup said.

Over the previous pandemic-addled year, the annual average fell to 30 percent, its lowest point on record, according to Gallup, which has measured Americans' attendance at religious services since 1939, Gallup added.

While a drop in religious service attendance is understandable during the pandemic, virtual participation was not enough to make up the difference. It remains unclear whether a four-percentage-point drop in US attendance from 2019 to 2020 reflects a lack of access to virtual services, a lack of interest in watching them, or both, according to Gallup.

The European Union should allow people vaccinated with Russia's Sputnik V to apply for the bloc's COVID-19 certificate to travel across Europe, Governor of Italy’s southern region of Apulia, Michele Emiliano, told Sputnik on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum (SPIEF).

The European Commission is currently considering easing entry for those who received COVID-19 vaccines approved by either the EU regulator or the World Health Organization.

"I really hope that Russian tourists who have received the double dose of the Russian vaccine can be added to the list of countries. Of course, we really hope that this will take place because for us, it is very desirable and the tourism from Russia has done a lot of good in the last few years," Emiliano said, adding that EU travel rules are particularly complicated when it comes to Russian tourists.

The official also expressed hope that travel to the province's coastal city of Bari — stopped by the arrival of COVID-19 — would rebound next summer, as this year there are still many problems with regulating safe international travel.

Around 18 million Russians have already received the first component of a coronavirus vaccine, and people are becoming more eager to get inoculated, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Wednesday.

"In total, over 18 million people have been already vaccinated with the first component. The population is now doing it much more actively," Murashko told reporters on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

This year's edition of SPIEF is taking place in-person from Wednesday through Saturday at St. Petersburg's ExpoForum Convention and Exhibition Center. The Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, the umbrella media organization that includes such brands as Sputnik, RIA Novosti, InoSMI, and Baltnews, among others, is an official media partner of the country's major economic forum.

World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom called on Wednesday for global effort to vaccinate at least 10 percent of the global population against COVID-19 by the end of September and at least 30 percent by the end of the year.

"At the World Health Assembly last week, I called for a massive global effort to vaccinate at least 10 percent of the population of every country by the end of September and at least 30 percent by the end of the year. COVAX is key to achieving these targets ... We need COVAX to be fully financed to ensure a diverse portfolio that meets countries' needs. we need export restrictions to be lifted, we need companies to prioritize COVAX," Tedros said at the Gavi COVAX AMC Summit.

Japan has vaccinated more than 10 million people, or 8 percent of the country's, population, the Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday, citing the prime minister's office.

The country with a population of 126 million launched its mass vaccination campaign in mid-February with BioNTech/Pfizer shots and later the AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines.

According to the agency, 4,653,566 medical workers and 5,734,023 senior citizens aged 65 and over received at least one vaccine jab.

Despite its renowned healthcare system, Japan has been well behind other developed countries in vaccinating its population. To address the shortcomings, the government has launched a long-run strategy on vaccination which targets the development of research and production of vaccines in the country.

Russia registered 8,832 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, down from 9,500 the day before, which brought the cumulative total to 5,090,249, the federal response centre said on Wednesday.

"Over the past day, 8,832 coronavirus cases were confirmed across 84 Russian regions, including 1,153 cases (13.1 percent) without clinical symptoms," the centre said, adding that the rate of increase fell to 0.17 percent.

Moscow confirmed 2,842 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, down from 3,669 the day before. The Russian capital was followed by St. Petersburg with 828 new cases, up from 817 the day before, and the Moscow Region with 761 cases, up from 743 the day before.

No new cases were recorded in the Chukotka autonomous region.

The response centre reported 394 new fatalities linked to the coronavirus, up from 372 the day before, raising the country's death toll to 122,267.

In the same 24 hours, 9,020 people were discharged from hospitals as recovered across the country, up from 8,994 the previous day, bringing the total to 4,702,599.

Argentine Presidential Advisor Cecilia Nicolini said that the country has signed an annex to their existing contract with Russia which will allow them to purchase more doses of the Sputnik V vaccine.

"An annex [to the contract] was drawn [to receive new doses]," she told RIA Novosti.

The original contract was signed in December last year.

 Russia is resuming flights with the UK from 2 June.

Regular Moscow-London flights are allowed three times a week from Wednesday.

The UK was one of the first three countries with which Russia resumed flights after a long pause due to the coronavirus pandemic. Flights to it - as well as to Turkey and Tanzania - have been allowed since August 2020.

From 22 December 2020, Russia suspended flights to the UK due to the detection of a new strain of coronavirus in that country. From 15 April, due to an unfavourable COVID-19 situation, Moscow also suspended flights with Turkey and Tanzania.