Here's the COVID-19 summary for Tuesday.
Coronavirus: What's happening in Canada and around the world on Tuesday
The UK will be instituting tighter border controls. People arriving from southern Africa, South America, and Portugal will have to quarantine in a hotel for 10 days at their own expense.
Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said there would be an announcement Tuesday on plans for tighter border measures. The BBC reported that U.K. citizens and residents arriving from most of southern Africa and South America, as well as Portugal, will have to self-isolate in a hotel for 10 days at their own expense.
Canada have announced plans to tighten border controls further, but there are no details as yet.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says new pandemic measures are coming for Canada and that Canadians should cancel any travel plans.
Trudeau said that even though existing travel control measures have been effective in keeping the number of infections low, more effort will be needed going forward.
As mentioned in a previous post, EU threats to cut off or restrict supplies of vaccine to Canada are causing great concern.
Trudeau sought to reassure Canadians on Tuesday that vaccine shots will continue to arrive even as the European Union threatens protectionist measures to limit the export of doses abroad.
The EU is poised to impose export controls on vaccines leaving the 27-member bloc to ensure supply on the continent. The proposal would require companies to seek approval before shipping vaccines to countries such as Canada.
Globally, there have been more than 100 million cases of COVID-19 so far, and more than 2.1 million deaths.
As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 100 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 55.1 million of the cases considered recovered or resolved, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 2.1 million.
French vaccine company Sanofi will apparently be giving up on their own vaccine and have reached an agreement with Pfizer and Biontech to produce the Biontech vaccine instead. They will produce more than 100 million doses by the end of the year.
French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi will produce more than 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by its competitors Pfizer and BioNTech by the end of the year, CEO Paul Hudson told Le Figaro newspaper in an interview published on Tuesday.
As Sanofi and its British partner GlaxoSmithKline have delayed the launch of their shot to late 2021, the French company decided to approach Pfizer "in order to be helpful as of now," Hudson said, adding that an agreement with the U.S. company had been reached.
Portugal may has other EU countries to send medical staff to help them. Portugal have had the world's highest rate of new cases and deaths for a week now. Hospitals are under strain. They have beds, but they don't have the staff to make use of them.
In Portugal, the health minister said authorities are considering asking other European Union countries for help amid a steep surge in COVID-19 cases. Portugal has had the world's worst rate of new daily cases and deaths per 100,000 people for the past week, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Health Minister Marta Temido said sending patients to other EU countries is not uncommon in the bloc. But, she said, Portugal has the disadvantage of being geographically remote and hospitals across the continent are under pressure from the pandemic. She said the country may instead be asking for medical workers to be sent.
Portuguese hospitals are under severe strain, Temido told public broadcaster RTP. "We have beds available," she said. "What we're struggling with is finding staff."
That request may be difficult to fulfil, because all countries in the 27-nation bloc are dealing with their own pandemic strains, made more difficult now because of the emergence of virus variants.
Taiwan have quarantined 5,000 people in connection with an outbreak at a hospital.
In the Asia-Pacific region, health authorities in Taiwan are quarantining 5,000 people while looking for the source of two new coronavirus cases linked to a hospital.
Total cases in Indonesia have topped 1 million, and deaths 28,468. They started vaccinations recently.
Indonesia's confirmed coronavirus infections since the pandemic began crossed one million on Tuesday and hospitals in some hard-hit areas were near capacity.
Indonesia's Health Ministry announced that new daily infections rose by 13,094 on Tuesday to bring the country's total to 1,012,350, the most in Southeast Asia. The total number of deaths reached 28,468.
The milestone comes just weeks after Indonesia launched a massive campaign to inoculate two-thirds of the country's 270 million people, with President Joko Widodo receiving the first shot of a Chinese-made vaccine.
Airlines in China are offering to refund tickets as the government tries to limit travel during Lunar New Year. China are currently dealing with a major outbreak in the northern part of the country.
Chinese airlines are offering refunded tickets as the coronavirus continues to spread in the country's northeast. The offer Tuesday from the government's aviation authority comes amid a push to prevent people travelling during the Lunar New Year holiday next month.
Russia and China are talking to Zimbabwe about supply vaccine to them.
In Africa, Russia and China have approached Zimbabwe about supplying vaccines to tackle its escalating COVID-19 outbreak amid concern about Harare's ability to afford the shots.