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A grave digger prepares graves at the Motherwell Cemetery in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Friday, Dec. 4, 2020 (AP Photo/Theo Jeftha)
Global daily deaths from COVID-19 hit a new dire record as 2020 drew to a close, with over 15,000 people succumbing to the disease on Thursday, December 31, according to websites tracking the pandemic.
Oxford University’s Our World in Data reported the figure to be at 15,525, while Worldometers gave the figure as 15,124. Daily fatalities had never before crossed the 15,000 mark.
December saw several such records shattered, with deaths crossing 13,000 a day for the first time on December 15 and 14,000 on December 22.
In total, over 1.8 million people have died of coronavirus around the world, while nearly 84 million cases have been reported.
UK approves lower-cost vaccine as pandemic surges
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LONDON, Dec 31, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Britain on Wednesday became the first nation to approve a lower-cost vaccine partially developed by Oxford University as the Covid-19 pandemic raged worldwide, with Germany logging its highest daily death toll.
New Year’s Eve marks one year since the World Health Organization first mentioned a mysterious pneumonia in China later identified as Covid-19, which went on in 2020 to kill more than 1.79 million people and devastate the global economy in unprecedented ways.
But international efforts helped develop vaccines in record time, and following Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the candidate developed by Oxford and drug firm AstraZeneca became the third to win approval in the Western world.
After years of epic battle in the Palace of Westminster over Britain s exit from the European Union, lawmakers were recalled Wednesday from their holiday