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WHO says the coronavirus pandemic might not be the ‘‘big one’’ that experts have long feared

The WHO has repeatedly warned that the world must prepare for even deadlier pandemics in the future.MARKUS SCHOLZ/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

The coronavirus pandemic might not be the ’'big one’' that experts have long feared, a World Health Organization official warned Tuesday during the global health agency’s last virtual media briefing of the year.

Since the first reports of the novel coronavirus began circulating nearly a year ago, the WHO has repeatedly warned that the world must prepare for even deadlier pandemics in the future.

’'This pandemic has been very severe,’' WHO emergencies chief Mark Ryan said. ’'It has affected every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one.’'

The coronavirus, he said, should serve as a ’'wake-up call.’'

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’'These threats will continue,’' he said. ’'One thing we need to take from this pandemic, with all of the tragedy and loss, is we need to get our act together. We need to honor those we’ve lost by getting better at what we do every day.’'

After the novel coronavirus emerged in China late last year, 2020 is coming to an end amid the rollout of new coronavirus vaccines. Case numbers are rising in some places, public health experts are warning about a highly transmissible variant of the virus first detected in the United Kingdom in September and since documented in more than 20 countries.

While the variant does not appear to be more deadly or vaccine-resistant, it does transmit faster and is probably fueling outbreaks from England to South Africa.

On Tuesday, German health officials said they detected a case of the UK variant dating back as early as November. An elderly coronavirus patient who had the variant ultimately died of the virus. The patient’s daughter had returned from Britain in mid-November, and the man’s wife was also infected with COVID-19, the illness the novel coronavirus can cause, but she survived, Agence France-Presse reported.

Germany is one of several countries to temporarily bar travelers from the United Kingdom to prevent the variant’s spread. Much of England is under a lockdown.

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India on Tuesday confirmed its first cases of the UK variant after finding it in six people who had recently arrived from Britain. Indian Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told reporters Tuesday that the country probably would issue a temporary ban on flights from the United Kingdom as a result.

Countries across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East have documented cases of the fast-spreading form of the virus. Canada on Saturday was the first to report it in North America. It is probably already circulating undetected in the United States, according to public health experts. The United States has the world’s highest count of coronavirus infections and fatalities.

Washington Post


Russia says COVID-19 deaths three times higher than reported

MOSCOW — After months of questions over the true scale of the coronavirus pandemic in Russia and the efficacy of a Russian-developed vaccine, the state statistical agency in Moscow has announced new figures indicating that the death toll from COVID-19 is more than three times as high as officially reported.

Russia has reported more than 3 million cases of infection, making it the world’s fourth-hardest-hit country, but only 55,827 deaths, fewer than in seven other countries. A demographer at a government agency who questioned the official fatality figures, dismissing them as far too low, was fired over the summer.

New data issued Monday by Rosstat, the state statistics agency, however, indicated that the demographer was right and the real number of fatalities is far higher than previously reported. The agency reported that the number of deaths between January and November was 229,732 higher than over the same period last year, an increase that a senior official blamed largely on the coronavirus.

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Tatyana Golikova, a deputy prime minister leading Russia’s efforts to combat the pandemic, told a government briefing Monday that more than 81 percent of the increased number of deaths in 2020 was “due to COVID,” which would mean that the virus had killed more than 186,000 Russians so far this year.

This is still far fewer than the more than 334,000 deaths caused by COVID-19 in the United States but means that Russia has suffered more fatalities as a result of the pandemic than European countries like Italy, France, and Britain, whose poor record has been regularly cited by Russian state media as proof of Russia’s relative triumph. As of Tuesday afternoon, the webpage giving Rosstat’s new data was inaccessible.

The gap between the official death rate and the real one is largely explained by Russia’s practice of recording a death as coronavirus-related only in cases where an autopsy has confirmed the coronavirus as the main cause. Critics say this has allowed authorities to massage the numbers.

Russia in August became the first country to register a coronavirus vaccine. But a recent survey found that only 38 percent of Russians intend to get vaccinated.

New York Times

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US vaccinating military personnel in South Korea

SEOUL — The United States has started vaccinating its troops based in South Korea, as its Asian ally reported its highest daily COVID-19 fatalities amid surging cases in the country.

The United States Forces Korea says in a statement it started inoculating military and civilian health-care workers, first responders and the USFK command team with the Moderna vaccine on Tuesday.

Among those who received the vaccinations was General Robert B. Abrams, chief of the 28,500 American troops in South Korea.

It says the vaccine is 100 percent voluntary and not mandatory. Abrams says that “I strongly encourage all eligible individuals to receive the vaccine.”

The USFK statement says more vaccines from Moderna, and potentially others with FDA approval, will be sent to the USFK.

The South Korean government has faced domestic criticism that it has been too slow in working out vaccine procurement plans. The government said Tuesday it will have vaccines for 56 million people, an amount seemingly enough for the country’s 51 million people. Officials say they plan to begin inoculating the South Korean public in February.

Earlier Tuesday, South Korea said 40 more virus patients had died in the past 24 hours, the country’s biggest coronavirus-related daily death toll since the pandemic began. South Korea also logged 1,046 new cases of infections, taking the total caseload to 58,725 with 859 deaths.

Associated Press