In Russia, the minimum number of deaths since September. Topical about the pandemic on January 2 – RBC

When a new Russian vaccine against COVID is registered, Putin has awarded more than 60 doctors for the fight against the pandemic; in France, children from six years old will be obliged to wear masks. The most relevant about the COVID pandemic – in the RBC review

In the country, 811 people have died from coronavirus in the last 24 hours, the operational headquarters said. This is at least since September 27th. Identified 18,233 new cases of COVID-19. The total number of infected is 10.5 million, 9.5 million people have recovered. Over 310 thousand died.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has awarded more than 60 Russian doctors for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic with the Order of Pirogov, the Medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, second degree, and the Luka Krymsky Medal “For his great contribution to the fight against coronavirus infection and dedication shown in the performance of professional duty “. The decree was signed on December 31.
• In his New Year’s address, Putin said that in Russia, “an insidious disease” claimed tens of thousands of lives, and expressed words of support to all who have lost loved ones.
• The new Russian vaccine against coronavirus “Konvasel” can be registered by the end of the first quarter of 2022, said the head of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA) Veronika Skvortsova.
• The Kremlin explained the error in determining the level of collective immunity to coronavirus. The discrepancy between the data is inevitable and the figures for different departments may differ, said the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov. Earlier, the head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova said that the level of herd immunity in Russia is approaching 56%. Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, in turn, said that the figure exceeded 61%.
• The drug “COVID-globulin” has passed clinical trials and received a permanent registration certificate from the Ministry of Health of Russia. “COVID-globulin” contains antibodies to COVID-19, which were obtained from the blood plasma of people who had been ill. The antibodies that make up the drug can neutralize the currently circulating strains of the coronavirus.

• In Russia, on January 15, a recruitment of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons will begin to participate in trials of a nasal vaccine against COVID-19, said the director of the Center. N.F. Gamalei Alexander Gunzburg.
• The COVID-19 nasal vaccine will go into civilian circulation in three to four months, Gunzburg said. According to him, the drug will be effective against the new omicron strain.

• Rospotrebnadzor has banned mass events for organized groups of children in St. Petersburg during the New Year holidays.

By data WHO, the number of people infected with coronavirus in the world has exceeded 281 million people, of which more than 5.4 million have died.

• The leader in the number of confirmed cases remains the United States, where more than 52.5 million infected were detected. India is in second place (over 34.8 million), in third place is Brazil (over 22.2 million), in fourth place is Great Britain (over 12.3 million), in fifth place is Russia. Over 9 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Turkey and France.

• From January 3, the French authorities will oblige children aged six and older to wear masks in public places. Since December 31 in Paris, wearing a medical mask has become mandatory in public places due to a sharp surge in omicron-strain coronavirus diseases.

• In a New Year’s address, French President Emmanuel Macron said the next few weeks will be difficult for the country due to a sharp rise in the number of COVID-19 cases.

• The strains “delta” and “omicron” can lead to a manifold increase in the number of cases of coronavirus infection, said the head of the WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus. Of particular concern, he said, is the fact that the omicron strain is more contagious. “This could lead to a tsunami of cases, which could significantly increase the pressure on health systems around the world,” says Gebreyesus.

• The mortality rate from the omicron strain of coronavirus is 75% lower compared to past waves of COVID-19 caused by its predecessors, scientists from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in South Africa and the University of Pretoria have found.

• Demosthenes Sariyannis, a professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, admitted that the wave of infections with the omicron strain of coronavirus could end by February 20 and become the last wave of a pandemic. According to the scientist, the peak incidence of omicron in Greece will be on January 20-22.

• In Ukraine, the development of its own vaccine against coronavirus has been suspended due to insufficient funding and lack of interest from the country’s authorities, said the head of the Lviv Institute of Cell Biology of the National Academy of Sciences Andriy Sibirny.

• Japanese scientists are working to create a coronavirus vaccine that would give people lifelong immunity, the pharmaceutical company Nobelpharma plans to conduct its clinical trials in 2023.