Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Sunday there are 76.3 million global COVID-19 cases.
The U.S. continues to lead the world in case numbers at 17.6 million, followed by India with 10 million and Brazil with 7.2 million. South Korea recorded 1,097 new infections Sunday, the fifth consecutive day it recorded more than 1,000 new cases.
A South Korean Justice ministry official said an outbreak at a prison in Seoul has infected 184 prisoners and one worker.
Starting Monday, the Australian states of Victoria and Queensland are banning people arriving from Sydney, where a 70-person coronavirus cluster has emerged in its northern beach suburbs which have now been placed under a strict lockdown until Christmas Eve.
Thailand said Sunday it will test more than 10,000 people in the southwestern province of Samu Sakhon after a daily surge of more than 500.
Uganda on Sunday registered another 7 coronavirus related deaths and 197 new cases, rising the total cumulative death toll and cases to 238 and 31,384 respectively. Over 700,000 samples have been tested in Uganda to date.
NEW STRAIN
Reports from Britain and South Africa of new coronavirus strains that seem to spread more easily are causing alarm, but virus experts say it's unclear if that's the case or whether they pose any concern for vaccines or cause more severe disease.
Viruses naturally evolve as they move through the population, some more than others. It's one reason we need a fresh flu shot each year.
New variants, or strains, of the virus that causes COVID-19 have been seen almost since it was first detected in China nearly a year ago. Several European Union countries and Canada were banning or limiting some flights from the U.K. to try to limit any spread.
What's concerning about the recent strain found in England?
Health experts in the U.K. and U.S. said the strain seems to infect more easily than others, but there is no evidence yet it is more deadly. Patrick Vallance, the British government's chief scientific adviser, said that the strain "moves fast and is becoming the dominant variant," causing over 60 per cent of infections in London by December.
The strain is also concerning because it has so many mutations — nearly two dozen — and some are on the spiky protein that the virus uses to attach to and infect cells. That spike is what current vaccines target.
"I'm worried about this, for sure," but it's too soon to know how important it ultimately will prove to be, said Dr. Ravi Gupta, who studies viruses at the University of Cambridge in England. He and other researchers posted a report of it on a website scientists use to quickly share developments, but the paper has not been formally reviewed or published in a journal.
How do these new strains occur?
Viruses often acquire small changes of a letter or two in their genetic alphabet just through normal evolution. A slightly modified strain can become the most common one in a country or region just because that's the strain that first took hold there or because "super spreader" events helped it become entrenched.
A bigger worry is when a virus mutates by changing the proteins on its surface to help it escape from drugs or the immune system.
"Emerging evidence" suggests that may be starting to happen with the new coronavirus, Trevor Bedford, a biologist and genetics expert at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, wrote on Twitter. "We've now seen the emergence and spread of several variants" that suggest this, and some show resistance to antibody treatments, he noted.
What other strains have emerged?
In April, researchers in Sweden found a virus with two genetic changes that seemed to make it roughly two times more infectious, Gupta said. About 6,000 cases worldwide have been reported, mostly in Denmark and England, he said.
Several variations of that strain now have turned up. Some were reported in people who got them from mink farms in Denmark. A new South African strain has the two changes seen before, plus some others.
The one in the U.K. has the two changes and more, including eight to the spike protein, Gupta said. It's called a "variant under investigation" because its significance is not yet known.
The strain was identified in southeastern England in September and has been circulating in the area ever since, a World Health Organization official told the BBC on Sunday.
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