With that it's a wrap to the LIVE updates on the coronavirus pandemic for today. Do join us tomorrow for the top developments on the COVID-19 situation from India and around the world. Until then stay safe and good night.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: UK reports new daily high of 1,564 COVID-19 deaths, second wave now more deadly

Britain reported 1,564 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test for COVID-19 on Wednesday, a record daily toll, meaning more have died in the second wave of the pandemic than the first wave last year, a health official said. The reported daily number of deaths exceeded the 1,325 recorded on Jan. 8 and comes as Britain battles a new, more transmissible variant of the virus. The government figures showed there were another 47,525 cases, up from 45,533 new cases on Tuesday. There have now been almost 85,000 deaths in Britain - the fifth highest figure globally - and 3.2 million have tested positive for COVID-19. "With each passing day, more and more people are tragically losing their lives to this terrible virus, and today we have reported the highest number of deaths on a single day since the pandemic began," Yvonne Doyle, the Medical Director for Public Health England, said on Twitter.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: 95% of Covishield doses delivered across country

As much as 95 per cent of 1.1 crore Covishield vaccine doses purchased by the Indian government have been been delivered across the country a day after transportation of the vaccine began, sources said on Wednesday. The first consignment of the Covishield vaccine against coronavirus from the Oxford/AstraZeneca stable rolled out of the Serum Institute of India manufacturing facility in Pune on Tuesday morning. Planes ferried vaccine consignments to 13 cities from Pune on the same day. "So far 95 per cent of the doses of the total purchase order (of 1.1 crore doses) have been delivered. Remaining over one lakh doses will be delivered shortly," saidsources involved in the transportation arrangements.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Researchers identify 2 new COVID-19 strains originating in the US

Researchers in Ohio have reportedly discovered two new variants of coronavirus that is understood to have originated in the US. One of the strains, the researchers said had become dominant in Columbus, Ohio in late December and January. The Ohio strain is similar to the one detected in the UK, and its mutations appear to make the virus more contagious. These strains would not diminish the effectiveness of the vaccine, the researchers added. The study being conducted by the Ohio State University researchers has not yet been published, but is being reviewed.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: 583 new COVID-19 cases in Gujarat, 4 more deaths reported

Gujarat reported 583 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, taking the case tally to 2,53,744, the state health department said. The state also recorded four deaths due to the pandemic during the day, taking the death toll to 4,354. With 792 patients being discharged from hospitals, the number of recovered cases rose to 2,42,164. The coronavirus recovery rate in Gujarat thus further improved to 95.44 per cent, the health department said. The state now has 7,226 active cases including 56 patients who are on ventilator, it said. No data on new tests conducted in the state was shared. Gujarat COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positive cases 2,53,744, new cases 583, death toll 4,354, active cases 7,226.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Delhi Police personnel above 50 years of age on vaccination priority list

Delhi Police personnel who are above 50 years of age will be on priority list for getting the COVID-19 vaccination, an official said on Wednesday. "The force has a strength of over 80,000 personnel and they have registered themselves for the vaccination. The date, time and place of vaccination for each police personnel will be intimated to him/her on their mobile number," Special Commissioner of Police, Operations and Licensing, Muktesh Chander said. "Personnel who are above 50 years will be in priority list for the vaccination," he said. The first batch of Covishield vaccine containing 2.64 lakh doses reached Delhi's central storage facility at Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital (RGSSH) on Tuesday. A SpiceJet flight carrying the vials landed at the Delhi airport around 10 am on Tuesday, four days ahead of the launch of a nationwide drive against the coronavirus. Thereafter, the Delhi Police had formed a "green corridor" to safely transport the vaccine to the hospital, the Delhi government's largest COVID-19 facility.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Haryana reports 2 more COVID-19 deaths, 225 fresh cases

Haryana on Wednesday reported two more coronavirus-related fatalities, taking the death toll to 2,966, while the infection tally rose to 2,65,616 with 225 fresh cases. According to the state health department's daily bulletin, a fatality each was reported from Karnal and Yamunanagar districts. Other districts which reported new cases include Gurgaon (51), Faridabad (39) and Panchkula (15). The number of active cases in the state stands at 2,414 and a total of 2,60,236 people have so far been discharged after recovering from the disease. The recovery rate in the state is 97.97 per cent.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: J-K records 121 new coronavirus cases, no deaths reported

Jammu and Kashmir did not record any coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours but 121 new positive cases took the number of infected people to 1,22,885, officials said on Wednesday. Out of the fresh cases, 55 were from Jammu division and 66 from Kashmir division of the union territory, they said. The officials said Jammu district recorded the highest of 47 cases followed by 35 in Srinagar district. Anantnag, Kulgam, Poonch, Ramban, Reasi and Kishtwar did not report any fresh cases, while 12 districts recorded fresh cases in single digits, the officials said. The number of active cases dropped to 1,629 in the union territory, while 1,19,344 patients have recovered so far, they said. As no fresh death due to coronavirus was reported in the past 24 hours, the death toll in the union territory stayed at 1,912.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Puducherry gets 17,500 doses of Covishield, govt ready for rollout on Jan 16

The Territorial government received on Wednesday 17,500 doses of Covishield vaccine and it would be used in Puducherry and Karaikal regions,officials said. Director of Health and Family Welfare services S Mohan Kumar said through a video message that separate consignment of 320 doses was received at the government hospital in Yanam, an enclave of Puducherry in Andhra Pradesh today. Mahe was expected to get the consignment of 1100 doses on Thursday. Chief Minister V Narayanasamy would inaugurate the vaccination drive at the government maternity hospital here on January 16in line with the Union Health Ministry guidelines.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Vaccine drive accelerates, doses reach far corners of India

India's drive against COVID-19 gathered momentum on Wednesday with planes carrying vaccines flying into airports across the country from where the precious cargo was dispatched to small cities and towns in readiness for the inoculation exercise beginning January 16. From Assam to Goa and from Jammu and Kashmir to Kerala, the vaccines were carefully and swiftly transported to far corners of the country, a day after the first consignment of the Covishield vaccine from the Oxford/AstraZeneca stable rolled out of the Serum Institute of India manufacturing facility in Pune. While SII moved about 56 lakh doses of Covishield to 13 cities, Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech said it had successfully transported the indigenous Covaxin, developed in collaboration with the ICMR and the National Institute of Virology, to 11 cities. It said it has donated 16.5 lakh doses to the Centre. "After having received the government purchase order for 55 lakh doses, the company shipped the first batch of vaccines (each vial containing 20 doses)," Bharat Biotech said in a statement on Wednesday.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Two districts of Karnataka receive over 2 lakh doses of Covishield

Updates with minister's statement Bengaluru/Belagavi: Two districts of Karnataka on Wednesday received 2.52 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine, Covishield, as Health Minister K Sudhakar said the state would soon also get 20,000 doses of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin. According to the minister, the only difference between the two vaccines is Covishield has five ml of vaccine in a vial and Covaxin has 10 ml. One vial can vaccinate 20 people.Both the vaccines will be given in the state,he said, adding that the vaccination drive will start from January 16 in line with the Centre's guidelines. Frontline workers will get the vaccine first. Bengaluru and Belagavi on Wednesday received 1.05 lakh and 1.47 lakh doses of Covishield from the Pune-based Serum Institute of India respectively, health officials said. The 1.47 lakh doses of coronavirus vaccines packed in 14,700 bottles had arrived in Belagavi early today, they added.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Nashik district receives 43,440 doses of Covishield

Nashik district has received 43,440 doses of Covishield vaccine, a senior official said on Wednesday. Inoculation against COVID-19 will be conducted at 16 centres in the district from January 16, collector Suraj Mandhare said. In the first phase, 18,135 government and 12,480 private healthcare employees will receive the jab while 1,029 people have been trained to administer the vaccine, he added.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: J&K receives 1.46 lakh COVID-19 vaccine doses

Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday received the first consignment of 1.46 lakh doses of coronavirus vaccine from Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), officials said. While 79,000 doses were received here for vaccination of nearly 60,000 healthcare workers in the Kashmir valley, 67,500 vaccines have been received in the Jammu division, they said. The officials said the vaccination will begin on Saturday at 30 centres across the union territory. "To begin with, inauguration ceremonies will be held at SKIMS hospital Soura in Srinagar and Government Medical College Jammu, where Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha will be present," they said. Besides these two, there are 14 immunisation centres each in the Kashmir valley and the Jammu division. The officials said in the first phase, healthcare workers across the union territory will be given shots while frontline workers will be covered in the second phase.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: UAE daily coronavirus cases cross 3,000 as authorities push vaccine

The daily number of COVID-19 cases in the United Arab Emirates crossed the 3,000 threshold for the first time this week as authorities in the Middle East's business and tourism hub urged people to accept vaccinations. The health ministry late on Tuesday reported 3,243 new daily infections and six deaths. That was the highest in the Gulf Arab region where daily cases in each of the other five states have fallen below 500. The surge in infections in the UAE, an international travel hub, prompted Britain to remove the country from its travel corridors list on Tuesday. Most coronavirus restrictions have been lifted in the UAE, but social distancing and mask-wearing in public are still required. Visitors have flocked to Dubai during its peak winter tourism season as other countries impose new lockdowns.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: ITIs reopen in Gujarat after gap of nearly 10 months

Industrial training institutes (ITIs) in Gujarat reopened on Tuesday after remaining shut for close to 10 months due to the coronavirus pandemic, an official said on Wednesday. As per an official release, the decision to reopen these institutions was taken following an advisory issued by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. In view of space constraints, the ITIs will have scheduled batch timings to ensure social distancing, said Vipul Mittra, additional chief secretary, Labour and Employment. Online classes will continue as per the schedule and students will be allowed to attend virtual lessons for theory subjects till the exams of the previous batch are over, the official said. "We have issued instructions to ensure that guidelines of the state and Central governments are adhered to. Each ITI has to appoint nodal officers who will monitor and ensure that the COVID-19 guidelines are followed," Mittra said. Classes will be conducted in shifts each day or on alternate days, whichever the ITIs find suitable, he said.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: China focussing on rural areas ahead of Lunar New Year celebrations

China is concentrating its pandemic prevention efforts in the rural areas as officials urge people to not travel home for the Lunar New Year festival while the country combats its most serious latest outbreak of COVID-19. Authorities said Wednesday local clinics and hospitals in villages need to strengthen their vigilance for any new COVID-19 cases, and local governments must take responsibility at every level from county to town to village. The government is bracing for the world's largest annual migration in which hundreds of millions travel home for Lunar New Year break in February, many of them workers from cities going back to their home villages. In the period leading up to Lunar New Year, we urge the public that those who do not need to travel, should not travel, and if one must travel, please observe all travel information and try to stagger travel to off-peak times, Wang Bin, an official with the National Health Commission, told a news conference. And to do personal protective measures and avoid crowded places with lots of people.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Singapore says ramping up COVID-19 vaccination drive

More than 6,000 people in Singapore have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the health ministry said on Wednesday, with numbers expected to rise substantially in the coming weeks as the city-state ramps up its immunisation drive. Singapore started vaccinating healthcare workers on Dec. 30, becoming one of the first Asian countries to start its coronavirus inoculation programme. The nation of 5.7 million people has been reporting relatively very few local cases in recent months and fatalities are among the world's lowest, with just 29 coronavirus-related deaths. It has so far approved only the Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine but has said it has secured enough doses from other vaccine-makers like Moderna and Sinovac to give to all citizens and residents by the third quarter this year.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Tripura receives 56,500 doses of COVID vaccine

The first consignment of 56,500 doses of COVID-19 vaccine arrived here on Wednesday in a cargo flight of a private carrier, an official said. The containers of the vaccine were shipped from Pune's Serum Institute and ferried to a special storage unit here from the city airport, he said. "The consignment of 56,500 doses of Covishield vaccine arrived at the Agartala airport in the morning. The vaccine containers were transported to a National Health Mission (NHM) storage facility at Gorkhabasti area," State Immunization Officer Kallol Roy told reporters here. The health department authorities have already started distribution of the vaccine doses to all the eight district headquarters of the state, he said.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Transported 3.5 tonnes of COVID-19 vaccines to 11 cities on Wednesday, says SpiceJet

SpiceJet said it transported 3.5 tonnes of COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday from Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad to 11 cities across the country. The movement of COVID-19 vaccines began on Tuesday morning. The shots will be used in the vaccination drive beginning Saturday. "On January 13, 2021, SpiceJet shipped 111 boxes of Covid-19 vaccine, weighing 3.5 tonnes from Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad to 11 cities including Bagdogra, Dehradun, Srinagar, Jammu, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Jabalpur, Ranchi, Rajkot, Delhi and Bengaluru," the airline said in a statement. The carrier said its freighter flight SG7555 operating from Hyderabad to Bengaluru took-off at 8.50 AM on Wednesday with a consignment of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin weighing 90 kg. It landed in Bengaluru at 10.23 am. "From Mumbai, SpiceJet carried 74 boxes of Serum Institute of India's (SII's) Covishield vaccine to various cities including two to Bagdogra, 10 to Dehradun, seven to Srinagar, six to Jammu, six to Kanpur, nine to Gorakhpur, 13 to Jabalpur, 14 to Ranchi & seven to Rajkot," it noted.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Netherlands extends Covid-19 lockdown

The Dutch government has extended its strict Covid-19 lockdown measures by three weeks until February 9 amid growing concerns over the spread of the new coronavirus strain. "We have no other choice," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at a press conference here on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported. Earlier on Tuesday, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) reported a decline in the number of weekly Covid-19 infections in the country for the second week in a row.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Chinese mainland reports 107 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases

The Chinese mainland on Tuesday reported 115 newly confirmed Covid-19 cases, of whom 107 were locally transmitted and the rest arrived from outside the mainland, the National Health Commission said on Wednesday. Of the locally transmitted cases, 90 were reported in north China's Hebei Province, 16 in Heilongjiang Province and one in Shanxi Province, Xinhua news agency reported citing the Health Commission.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: 2nd consignment of Covid vaccine reaches Odisha

A day after the arrival of the first consignment of Covishield, Odisha received a supply of another Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday. The state received as many as 20,000 doses of indigenously developed Covaxin. A special plane carrying Covaxin from Hyderabad arrived at the Biju Patnaik International Airport here, an official said. The vials of Covaxin, manufactured in Hyderabad by Bharat Biotech and Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), were transported to the state vaccine store here amid tight security, he said. As many as 4.08 lakh Covishield doses from the Serum Institute of India (SII) had reached Bhubaneswar on Tuesday afternoon.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Kerala cinema halls open after 10 months of Covid shutdown

The movie theaters in Kerala, which were shut for around ten months owing to Covid restrictions opened on Wednesday. Over 500 of the total 670 theaters opened to the public. South Indian Super star Vijay's movie, "Master", is the inaugural movie in all the theaters in the state. However in certain theaters, owing to projector equipment complaints, the show was put on hold. Apsara theater in Kozhikode cancelled the 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. shows owing to a projector complaints, thereby disappointing a huge number of fans who had gathered in the theater.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: No Covid vax for minors, pregnant women, says Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope

Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said on Wednesday that the 'Covishield' vaccine will not be administered to people under 18 years of age, pregnant women and those with allergies, as per the Centre's protocols. "We have decided to give the full two-doses to the selected persons, the first dose now and the second after 4-6 weeks. However, those below 18 years, pregnant women or people with allergies shall not be administered the vaccine," Tope told mediapersons. He said so far, Maharashtra has received 963,000 doses of the expected 17,50,000 - which is around 55 per cent of the state government's quota - from the manufacturers Serum Institute of India (SII), Pune.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: 29 new cases added to Pondy's COVID-19 tally

Puducherry registered 29 fresh cases of coronavirus on Wednesday raising the overall tally to 38,524. No fresh fatality was reported from any of the four regions of Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam and the toll remained 639. Director of Health and Family Welfare S Mohan Kumar said 29 new cases were identified at the end of the examination of 3,002 samples.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Africa secures close to 300 million vaccine doses, says official

The African Union has secured close to 300 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in the largest such agreement yet for Africa, a continental official said Tuesday.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Kerala cinema halls open after 10 months of Covid shutdown

The movie theaters in Kerala, which were shut for around ten months owing to Covid restrictions opened on Wednesday. Over 500 of the total 670 theaters opened to the public. South Indian Superstar Vijay's movie, "Master", is the inaugural movie in all the theaters in the state. However, in certain theaters, owing to projector equipment complaints, the show was put on hold. Apsara theater in Kozhikode canceled the 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. shows owing to projector complaints, thereby disappointing a huge number of fans who had gathered in the theater.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Four new cases take Mizoram's COVID-19 tally to 4,303

Four more people, including a Border Security Force (BSF) jawan, have tested positive for COVID-19 in Mizoram, taking the tally in the state to 4,303, an official said on Wednesday. The fresh cases were reported from Aizawl, Lunglei, Kolasib and Khawzawl districts. Three cases were detected through TrueNat method and one was found through Rapid Antigen Test, the official said.

Coronavirus News LIVE Updates: Three new COVID-19 cases in Andamans; tally at 4,966

The COVID-19 caseload in Andaman and Nicobar Islands rose to 4,966 as three more persons have tested positive for the disease in the Union Territory, a health department official said on Wednesday. The fresh cases were detected during contact tracing, he said. The death toll remained at 62 as no new fatality due to the infection was reported in the last 24 hours. Two patients were cured of the disease on Tuesday, taking the total number of recoveries in the archipelago to 4,886, the official said. The Union Territory now has 18 active cases. The Andaman and Nicobar administration has conducted 1,96,859 sample tests for COVID-19 so far, and the positivity rate stands at 2.52 percent, he added.