White House press secretary Jen Psaki says the Biden administration will provide public briefings on the coronavirus pandemic starting Wednesday.

There is some evidence that a new coronavirus variant first identified in southeast England carries a higher risk of death .than the original strain, the British government’s chief scientific adviser said Friday -- though he stressed that the data is uncertain

A panel of experts commissioned by the World Health Organization has criticized China and other countries for not moving to stem the initial outbreak of the coronavirus earlier and questioned whether the U.N. health agency should have labeled it a pandemic sooner.

The race against the virus that causes COVID-19 has taken a new turn: Mutations are rapidly popping up, and the longer it takes to vaccinate people, the more likely it is that a variant that can elude current tests, treatments and vaccines could emerge.

The Japanese Diet opened Monday with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga vowing to go ahead with preparations to hold the Tokyo Olympics this summer, in the face of growing public opposition amid a surge in COVID-19 infections across the country.

The World Health Organization chief on Monday lambasted drugmakers’ profits and vaccine inequalities, saying it’s “not right” that younger, healthier adults in wealthy countries get vaccinated against COVID-19 before older people or health care workers in poorer countries and charging that most vaccine makers have targeted locations where “profits are highest.”

Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Vikram K Doraiswami on Saturday reiterated that Bangladesh will receive its supply of the Coronavirus vaccine from an Indian manufacturer “quickly and urgently” as per previous assurances.

The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 2 million Friday, crossing the threshold amid a vaccine rollout so immense but so uneven that in some countries there is real hope of vanquishing the outbreak, while in other, less-developed parts of the world, it seems a far-off dream.

The government has again extended the closure of educational institutions until Jan 30 as the coronavirus situation shows no sign of improvement.

Health minister Zahid Maleque on Thursday reassured the people that there won’t be any problem in storing and distributing Covid-19 vaccines.