The number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide topped 20 million, more than half of them from the United States, India and Brazil, as Russia on Tuesday became the first country to register a vaccine against the virus.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the registration at a government meeting and added that one of his two adult daughters had already been inoculated. “She’s feeling well and has high number of antibodies,” he said.
Russia has reported more than 890,000 cases, the fourth-most in the world, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally that also showed total confirmed cases globally surpassing 20 million.
It took six months or so to get to 10 million cases after the virus first appeared in central China late last year. It took just over six weeks for that number to double.