LAHORE, JAN 13 (ONLINE): Corona virus claimed 55 lives in the last 24 hours in the country mounting the nationwide tally of fatalities to 10,772 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
According to the latest figures by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) 2,123 persons tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. The number of positive cases has surged to 508,824
\nTill now 228,949 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Sindh, 146,525 in Punjab 62,018 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 39,462 in Islamabad, 18,467 in Balochistan, 8,521 in Azad Kashmir and 4,882 in Gilgit-Baltistan.
\nFurthermore 4,323 individuals have lost their lives to the epidemic in Punjab 3,730 in Sindh, 1,748 in KP, 447 in Islamabad, 235 in Azad Kashmir, 188 in Balochistan, and 101 in GB.<\/p>\n
The United States announced all air travelers entering the country will need a negative Covid-19 test before departure, as the country hit a record of nearly 4,500 deaths in a single day.
\nThe policy takes effect on January 26 and expands an existing measure targeting Britain, where the strain known as B117 has been tied to a drastic spike in cases.
\nIreland, which now has the world\u2019s highest per capita infection rate, also announced Tuesday it was extending testing measures that previously applied only to travelers from the UK and South Africa.
\n\u201cTesting does not eliminate all risk, but when combined with a period of staying at home and everyday precautions like wearing masks and social distancing, it can make travel safer,\u201d said Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
\nThe United States remains the worst-affected country, with around 380,000 \u2014 or a fifth \u2014 of the world\u2019s almost two million dead, despite accounting for just four percent of the global population.
\nIn 24 hours, the US recorded more than 235,000 new cases and a record high of 4,470 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins tally on Tuesday evening.
\nAlso Tuesday, Democratic members of US Congress voiced fury at Republican colleagues who refused to wear masks while lawmakers sheltered from a mob that rampaged through the Capitol last week.
\n\u201cI am now in strict isolation, worried that I have risked my wife\u2019s health and angry at the selfishness and arrogance of the anti-maskers,\u201d said Brad Schneider, the third Democratic representative to test positive.
\nThird vaccine in EU
\nAcross the border in Canada, the most populous province of Ontario ordered residents to stay home as projections showed the number of cases could soon explode and overwhelm hospitals.
\nBut there was some positive news in the European Union, which started the approval process for its third vaccine on Tuesday.
\nThe 27-nation bloc promised an \u201caccelerated timeline\u201d after confirming drug company AstraZeneca had applied for approval for the jab it developed with Oxford University.
\nThe EU\u2019s medicines agency said a decision would still not come before January 29.
\nBut the European Commission said Tuesday it had concluded exploratory talks with Franco-Austrian biotechnology laboratory Valneva for the possible purchase of up to 60 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine.
\nNo population immunity this year
\nSwitzerland meanwhile approved the Moderna vaccine, having already been the first country in continental Europe to start using the Pfizer-BioNTech jab.
\nEven with mass vaccinations however, World Health Organization scientists warned that coverage would still not be wide enough for population-level immunity this year.
\nMalaysia declared a state of emergency on Tuesday as fears grow that its health system is close to being overwhelmed, after China and Japan took measures against localized clusters.
\nThe Netherlands became the latest European nation to tighten virus controls, extending its restrictions until February 9, including the closure of schools and non-essential shops, and a ban on people having more than two visitors in their homes.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think I am going to surprise you this evening, the lockdown is extended by three weeks,\u201d Prime Minister Mark Rutte told a televised news conference.
\nPortugal\u2019s 72-year-old President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa meanwhile has now tested negative for coronavirus after a positive test that saw him cancel all public engagements, his office said Tuesday, two weeks before an election he looks set to win.
\nChina added a city of five million to a growing lockdown area near Beijing on Tuesday, as WHO experts arrive in the central city of Wuhan to probe the origins of the disease there.
\nUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday demanded China release a citizen journalist jailed for reports from Wuhan, accusing Beijing of seeking to cover up the Covid-19 pandemic.
\nUkraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelensky, under pressure for having failed to secure any Western-made vaccines, on Tuesday called on the European Union to help source coronavirus shots.
\nMalawi lost two senior members of government to the virus Tuesday, transport minister Sidik Mia and local government minister Lingson Belekanyama.
\nMask threat to wildlife
\nSports fans can look forward to England starting a cricket Test match in Sri Lanka on Thursday, 10 months after their tour was called off.
\nBut elsewhere, shredded schedules and crisis meetings were still the order of the day.
\nTokyo Olympics organizers dismissed speculation that this summer\u2019s event was about to be canceled, as polls showed public support declining.
\nFormula One announced a major reshuffle of next season\u2019s races, shifting the season-opening Australia Grand Prix from March to November and postponing the China race indefinitely.
\nAnd the US National Basketball Association and its players union updated health protocols on Tuesday after an increase in cases among players and game postponements.
\nEnvironmentalists also warned about the pandemic\u2019s longer term impacts.
\nDiscarded face masks \u2014 littering waterways and beaches the world over \u2014 can wreck animal habitats and take hundreds of years to decompose, campaigners warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LAHORE, JAN 13 (ONLINE): Corona virus claimed 55 lives in the last 24 hours in the country mounting the nationwide tally of fatalities to 10,772 on Wednesday. According to the latest figures by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) 2,123 persons tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. The number of positive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-news"],"yoast_head":"\n