Coronavirus live updates: First time since August, daily tests below 9 lakh for 3 days

"We see certain changes...in Siberia which allow us to assume that in this region it is forming its own version with specific mutations," Anna Popova, head of Rospotrebnadzor, was quoted as saying by news agencies. Popova did not give details on how contagious or deadly the mutation was considered to be but said it would not make the virus more dangerous. The country reported a record daily high of 442 deaths from COVID-19.

Germany's confirmed COVID-19 cases rose 14,419 to 815,746, said the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the federal government agency for disease control and prevention, on Tuesday. The total death toll from the disease rose by 267 to 12,814, the RKI added. Germany entered a partial lockdown in November in reaction to the second COVID-19 wave and rising infection numbers.

The trend of new daily recoveries exceeding the daily new cases continues with 40,791 cases recovering in a span of 24 hours against just 29,163 newly detected cases. The active caseload which now stands at 4,53,401 comprises just 5.11% of all cumulative cases.

With 8,44,382 Covid-19 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the total number of tests in India now stands at 12,65,42,907, with a cumulative coronavirus positivity rate at 7.01 per cent, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) in a statement. The number of active cases currently stands at 4,53,401, about 5.11 per cent of all cumulative count.