WHO assesses situation over spread of UK Covid variant

The British strain of coronavirus has already been detected in 60 countries and territories, Report mentions, citing the document published on the WHO's website.

"Since the last update on January 12, the VOC-202012/01 variant has been detected in 10 more countries/territories/regions. To date, 60 countries in all six WHO regions have reported imported cases of this variant (coronavirus) or transmission within the community," according to a document published on the organization's website.

The WHO also said that another coronavirus mutation, the 501.V2 strain, first detected in South Africa, was found in "three more countries." As noted, now the number of countries seeing new COVID-19 variant "has reached 23 in four of the six WHO regions".

According to the data, over the past week, more than 4.7 million new coronavirus cases have been reported worldwide. This figure is 6% lower than a week earlier. Besides, the number of deaths reached a record level - more than 93 thousand, which is 9% more than the previous data.