Highlights: 7-day nationwide lockdown in Bhutan from tomorrow

Taiwan's government on Tuesday reported its first locally transmitted case of Covid-19 since April 12. The individual who tested positive for Covid-19 was a friend of a person who had already been confirmed to have been infected with the virus, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told a news conference.

Thailand confirmed 427 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, with the majority of cases linked to a seafood centre outbreak in a province near the capital Bangkok, the public health ministry said. The new cases include 397 migrant workers in the southwestern province of Samut Sakhon, where Thailand's coronavirus worst outbreak yet was confirmed at the weekend.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 19,528 to 1,530,180, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Tuesday. The reported death toll rose by 731 to 27,006, the tally showed.

Seven more people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, raising the tally in the Union Territory to 4,888, a health department official said on Tuesday. All the fresh cases were detected during contact tracing, he said. The death toll increased to 62 after one more person succumbed to the infection, he said.

Telangana reported 617 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the total caseload to over 2.82 lakh while three more fatalities pushed the toll to 1,518. Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for the most number of cases with 103, followed by Medchal Malkajgiri 52 and Rangareddy 51, a government bulletin said on Tuesday providing details as of 8 pm on December 21.

Malaysia has signed a deal with AstraZeneca Plc. to secure 6.4 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said. The government is also in final negotiations with China’s Sinovac, CanSino Biologics and Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute, part of a plan to get supplies to cover more than 80% of the population, or 26.5 million people, he said in a televised address on Tuesday. The country expects to spend $504.4 million on the shots, he said.

Colombia registered 10,845 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide tally to 1,518,067, the country's health authorities said Monday. The country also reported 205 more deaths, raising the national death toll to 40,680, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection said in an update, adding that 1,382,340 people have so far recovered.

Mainland China recorded 15 new Covid-19 cases on December 21, compared with 23 the previous day, and will look to strengthen measures to prevent the arrival of a new strain of the coronavirus, the country's health authority said.

The National Health Commission said in its daily bulletin that 13 of the new cases were imported. Two cases of local transmission were reported in the northeastern province of Liaoning.

Mexico's health ministry on Monday reported 5,370 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 396 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 1,325,915 cases and 118,598 deaths. The government says the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.