COVID-19 Live Updates: UK Health Minister Javid Doesn't Expect Any More Lockdowns

China has registered 20 new COVID-19 cases, all of them in the southeastern Fujian province, the National Health Commission said on Sunday.

"20 indigenous cases in Fujian, 19 in Putian and 1 in Quanzhou, including 1 confirmed case converting from an asymptomatic case," the statement reads.

Until recently, China was able to stem the spread of the infections across the country. For a long time, most confirmed cases were the ones brought to the country by travellers from abroad. But a mid-July outbreak in the city of Nanjing spread to several other cities.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, mainland China has registered 95,199 COVID-19 cases and 4,636 deaths caused by the disease.

Russia recorded 18,554 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, down from 18,891 cases the day before, bringing the cumulative total to 7,140,070, the federal response centre said on Sunday.

"Over the past day, 18,554 COVID-19 cases were confirmed across 85 Russian regions, including 1,332 cases (7.2%) without clinical symptoms," the centre said, adding that the rate of increase stands at 0.26%.

The highest number of new cases was registered in St. Petersburg — 1,597 infections. It was followed by Moscow with 1,592 cases and the Moscow region with 718 cases.

The response centre reported 788 new deaths linked to the coronavirus, down from 796 the day before, raising the country's death toll to 192,749.

In the same 24 hours, 14,497 COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals across the country, down from 17,888 the day before, bringing the total to 6,389,657.

"I am not anticipating any more lockdowns. I think it would be irresponsible for any health minister around the world to take everything off the table but I just don't see how we get to another lockdown," British health minister Sajid Javid said.

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Sunday that his country would receive an additional 1 million Moderna vaccine doses from the European Union.

"I can confirm today that the Federal Government has secured an additional 1 million Moderna doses from the European Union member states," Morrison said, speaking live from Kirribilli House in Sydney.

The prime minister's speech was broadcast by ABC News Australia.

The doses are due to arrive next week. They will come on the heels of the country's Technical Advisory Group on Immunization's recommendation for the use of the Moderna vaccine for everyone over 12 years of age.

These Moderna doses come in addition to the 4 million Pfizer doses the country secured in a swap deal with the United Kingdom. From mid-September the country is planning to commence vaccinating teenagers aged 12-15.

So far, 8.42 million Australians are fully vaccinated which amounts to 33.2% of the entire population.

"Of course we still want to remain very cautious, and there are some things, when it comes to travel for example, there are some rules that have to remain in place, but the PCR test that's required upon your return to the UK from certain countries, look I want to try to get rid of that as soon as I can," Sajid Javid said.

"Now that we're entering autumn and winter ... the prime minister this week will be setting out our plans to manage COVID over the coming few months and in that we will be making it clear that our vaccine programme is working," Sajid Javid said.

The number of people who received both doses of coronavirus vaccine in Japan has exceeded 50% of the country's total population, Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of Japan's coronavirus response, told the NHK broadcaster on Sunday.

"The number of fully vaccinated people has exceeded 50% of the total population. If we maintain the current rate of vaccination, we can expect that more than 60% of the population will receive two doses by the end of this month," Nishimura said.

Japan launched its nationwide immunization campaign in mid-February. As of now, three vaccines — those made by Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Moderna — are authorized for use.