More than 31.86 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 976,805 have died, according to Worldometers tally.
Infections have been reported in more than 213 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.
India's coronavirus infections surged again on Wednesday, a day after falling to their lowest figure in almost a month.
In the last 24 hours, there were 83,347 new cases, with 1,085 deaths, federal health data showed.
India, with a population of about 1.4 billion, is consistently reporting the world's highest daily tally of infections, as it grapples with overstretched health services in the effort to control the pandemic.
Its 5.6 million infections rank second only to the United States, and more than 90,000 people have died.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia will allow pilgrims residing inside the country to undertake the umrah pilgrimage beginning on Oct 4, after a seven-month pause due to coronavirus concerns, state news agency SPA reported.
Umrah is an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina undertaken any time of the year, attracting 19 million people last year. Saudi Arabia had instituted a freeze on umrah in March.
It will now allow 6,000 citizens and residents inside the kingdom to perform umrah daily, representing 30 per cent of a revised capacity of 20,000 that takes into account precautionary health measures, SPA added. That will expand to 75 per cent of capacity on Oct 18.
Beginning Nov 1, Saudi Arabia will allow visitors from specific countries deemed safe to perform umrah at 100% of the revised capacity, until the end of the pandemic, SPA said.
Report from Chicago adds: Johnson & Johnson on Wednesday kicked off a final 60,000-person trial of a single-shot COVID-19 vaccine that potentially would simplify distribution of millions of doses compared with leading rivals using two doses.
The company expects results of the Phase III trial by year end or early next year, Dr. Paul Stoffels, J&J's chief scientific officer, said in a joint press conference with officials from the National Institutes of Health and the Trump administration.
Rival vaccines from Moderna Inc, Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca all require two shots separated by several weeks, which make them much more difficult to administer.
"The benefits of a single-shot vaccine are potentially profound in terms of mass immunization campaigns and global pandemic control," Dr. Dan Barouch, a Harvard vaccine researcher who helped design J&J's COVID-19 vaccine, said in a telephone interview.
Stoffels said J&J would publish a detailed study protocol for its phase 3 trial Wednesday on the company's website, joining the three other vaccine makers that have made these study plans available in recent weeks after calls for increased transparency in the trials.
Stoffels said J&J started the phase 3 trial after seeing positive results in its phase 1/2 trial in the United States and Belgium. The company plans to release those results imminently.
Stoffels said the safety and level of protection in the study were on par with what was seen in the company's animal studies, and said the results showed a single dose could offer sufficient protection "for a long time."
J&J's late-stage trial will use as many as 215 sites in the United States, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The company plans to manufacture as many as 1 billion doses in 2021, and more after that, Stoffels said.
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