A version of this story appeared in the January 8 edition of CNN’s Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction newsletter. Sign up here to receive the need-to-know headlines every weekday.

CNN  — 

The world is now facing the deadliest period of the coronavirus pandemic so far. The five worst days in terms of global Covid-19 deaths all came within the past 10 days, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

In the United States, the daily death toll has hit a new record on three consecutive days. Yesterday, that figure topped 4,000 for the first time ever.

Germany, South Africa and Sweden also reported their deadliest days yesterday, while the United Kingdom saw its worst day since April. 
Switzerland, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Panama, Slovakia and Lithuania are among the countries that recorded their highest daily fatalities earlier this week.

The new, more contagious, strains of the virus appear to be responsible for some of the spikes in cases. South Africa, where one of the variants was first identified, has seen more than 200,000 new cases in the past two weeks. At the same time, a humanitarian crisis is unfolding at the country’s frontier with Zimbabwe, where hundreds of workers have been blocked by a national lockdown that bans cross-border travel.

Public health officials across the world are desperately pleading with citizens to stick to the well-known safety precautions. Avoiding large gatherings, limiting contacts with those outside your household and wearing a mask are key.

This applies even if you don’t feel sick. A study published yesterday found that more than half of Covid-19 cases may have been transmitted by people not showing symptoms.

YOU ASKED. WE ANSWERED

Q: Will I have to take a Covid-19 vaccine in order to travel internationally?

A: A study provides early evidence that the Pfizer vaccine might be effective against two new coronavirus variants first identified in South Africa and the United Kingdom.

The two viruses share a mutation known as N501Y that scientists feared could allow the virus to evade the immunity generated by a vaccine. The researchers made a version of the virus that carries that mutation, then tested it against blood taken from 20 people who had received two doses of the Pfizer shot as part of a clinical trial. In research published yesterday, they said they found “no reduction in neutralization activity” against the mutated virus.

The study – conducted by researchers at Pfizer and the University of Texas Medical Branch – does not test the full array of these mutations. It also has not been peer-reviewed.

Send your questions here. Are you a health care worker fighting Covid-19? Message us on WhatsApp about the challenges you’re facing: +1 347-322-0415.

WHAT’S IMPORTANT TODAY

Two arthritis drugs can help the sickest Covid-19 patients

Early research has shown that giving infusions of either tocilizumab or sarilumab, two drugs typically used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, to critically ill Covid-19 patients was associated with an 8.5% improvement in surviving the disease and being discharged from a hospital’s intensive care unit about a week to 10 days faster.

“That’s a big change in survival,” said Anthony Gordon, chief investigator of the REMAP-CAP trial and a professor at Imperial College London. “We also saw the patients recovered more quickly. They were getting better and able to be discharged from the ICU quicker – and that was on average and every patient is slightly different.”

A year after Wuhan, China locks down another city

China has locked down a city of 11 million people in its northern province of Hebei, in an effort to contain the country’s worst coronavirus flare-up in months. Residents of Shijiazhuang, a provincial capital near Beijing, have been barred from leaving, with major highways blocked, train and bus stations closed and flights canceled.

The lockdown comes as a total of 117 Covid-19 infections – including 67 asymptomatic cases – were detected in Shijiazhuang on Wednesday. The city identified another 66 positive cases yesterday, according to the Hebei provincial health commission. The outbreak in that city comes just weeks before the Lunar New Year holiday, the most important annual festival in China, which typically sees millions of people traveling home to reunite with family.

LA County sees one virus death every eight minutes

The number of people dying of Covid-19 in Los Angeles County in a day is equivalent to the number of homicide deaths the city saw in an entire year, Mayor Eric Garcetti said during a news conference yesterday.

The county is the epicenter of the epidemic in California, with one person dying from the virus every eight minutes. “People who were otherwise leading healthy, productive lives are now passing away because of a chance encounter with the Covid-19 virus,” health officials said earlier this week. “This only ends when we each make the right decisions to protect each other.”

A patient waits on a trolley for a room at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, California on January 3, 2021.

ON OUR RADAR

  • Florida’s county-by-county plan to vaccinate its elderly population has created a mass scramble for a limited number of doses, leading to hours-long lines at vaccination sites and overwhelmed county hotlines and websites.
  • Dawn Wells, who played the lovable castaway Mary Ann Summers on “Gilligan’s Island,” died in Los Angeles on Wednesday from Covid-19 complications at the age of 82.
  • Around the world, many furloughed employees are toughing out the coronavirus pandemic by taking second or third jobs. This group of staff members at Japan Airlines have been dispatched to work in Shinto shrines during the New Year’s period.
  • You’d struggle to find anyone in Europe who will be unhappy to see the back of 2020. Covid-19, Brexit and the international political carnage of this year have hammered the continent and exacerbated tensions that have blighted the European Union for years. But those problems are not going anywhere in 2021.

TOP TIP

This year will be marked as a year of continued uncertainty, anxiety and – if you’re like many people – a lot of stress-related eating.

There is no need to stress about stress eating, though. As most of us await the arrival of new vaccines and a more healthy way of living, here are some tips on how to better fuel your body in 2021.

TODAY’S PODCAST

“Within half an hour of landing, I had my luggage, was ushered onto a bus, and taken to the hotel where I would be quarantined.” – Emily Liu, CNN Associate Producer

Imagine a country that is not under a strict lockdown or scrambling to find hospital beds to care for Covid patients; where people regularly dine and drink inside. This country exists – it’s Singapore. One of our associate producers, Emily Liu is there now, and today she takes us to a place where life feels almost normal again. Listen now.