Highlights: ICMR DG Balram Bhargava tests positive for Covid-19

Andhra Pradesh reported 458 new Covid-19 infections, taking the state's caseload to 8,77,806 including 4,377 active cases. The death toll after one new fatality stands at 7,070 while 534 new recoveries took the total number of recoveries to 8,66,359.

The Supreme Court on Friday said that coronavirus infections in the country has spread 'like wild fire' due to lack of implementation of guidelines.

The government said on Friday it could soon start voluntary inoculation against the Covid-19 disease as it considers emergency use authorization for three vaccine candidates including those from AstraZeneca and Pfizer.

Several US states have said that they have been told that their Pfizer coronavirus vaccine allotment for the second week in the US vaccination drive will be less than the first. Trump administration officials, however, downplayed the risks of delays.

The Spanish government has ordered an investigation into the deaths of the elderly in nursing homes and the lack of protective gear for health workers.

Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has tested positibe for Covid-19.

British schools minister Nick Gibb that a national lockdown cannot be ruled out after Christmas. The British government has decided to ease restrictions during the festive period despite surging cases.

A French government scientific advisor said that the country's population will not see a return to normalcy until the autumn of 2021.

Russia reported 28,552 new coronavirus cases on Friday, including 6,937 in Moscow, taking the national case tally to 2,791,220 since the pandemic began.

Authorities also reported 611 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 49,762.

The French population will probably not return to a "normal" post Covid-19 life before autumn 2021, a senior government scientific adviser said on Friday.

"We have a virus which continues to circulate strongly while we are just coming out of a second lockdown," immunologist Jean-François Delfraissy also told BFM television.

The Nigerian government said Thursday that there is an indication the country has been hit by a second wave of Covid-19 infections following a recent spike in the number of infections. Speaking on behalf of Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation and chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19, Hadi Sirika, the minister of aviation, told a daily news conference that the latest development in the most populous African country could be "a potentially difficult phase of the COVID-19 resurgence."

Belgium on Friday registered 3,146 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing its national tally to 618,204, the public health institute Sciensano reported. It also reported 93 new deaths, taking the country's death toll from the disease to 18,371.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday said he would announce new measures on Saturday to fight the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus pandemic, adding in an interview with state radio mr1 that they would take effect on January 1. Hungary's economy took a big hit in the pandemic, and the government expects gross domestic output to shrink by about 6% in 2020 followed by a modest rebound in 2021.

Odisha on Friday reported 358 new Covid-19 cases, pushing the tally to 3,25,505, while the death toll rose to 1,829 with four fresh fatalities, a health department official said. The new cases were detected in 27 of the state's 30 districts, with 208 of them reported from different quarantine centres, while the remaining 150 are local contact cases.

The Supreme Court on Friday directed all the states to carry out fire safety audit of dedicated Covid-19 hospitals across the country to prevent fire incidents in medical institutions. The apex court also directed dedicated Covid-19 hospitals to take a no objection certificate (NOC) from the fire department within four weeks and said that failure to do so will invite punitive action.