World Coronavirus Dispatch: Pandemic is Merriam-Webster word of the year

Croatia PM and wife test positive, Zoom sales jump four-fold, Vietnam reports first case in nearly three months and other pandemic-related news across the globe

EU vaccinations unlikely to start before next year

Europeans are unlikely to get first vaccine shots this year as regulators pushed the formal assessments to next year. On the contrary, the US and UK regulators are likely to give emergency approvals within days. The European Medicines Agency said it plans to give an opinion on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at a meeting on December 29. The regulator has also pushed back the assessment of the rival Moderna vaccine to January 12. The AstraZeneca-Oxford jab would not be scrutinised before January.  Read here

Let's look at the global statistics

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