"As of January 5, the VOC-202012/01 variety of coronavirus, which was originally detected in the United Kingdom, was detected in a small number of cases in another 40 states / territories / regions in five of the six WHO regions," TASS reports.

The WHO said that the type of coronavirus 501Y.V2, which was first detected in South Africa, was recorded "in six other countries / territories / areas."

Earlier, Alexey Agranovsky, professor of the Department of Virology at the Belozersky Institute of Moscow State University, commented on the situation with the coronavirus pandemic in an interview with URA.RU.