COVID-19 updates: Anti-vaccine protesters halt vaccinations at Dodger Stadium

Demonstrators carrying anti-mask and anti-vaccine signs blocked the entrance.

A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 102.5 million people worldwide and killed over 2.2 million of them, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.


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South Carolina confirms its 1st case of UK variant

An adult in South Carolina’s Lowcountry region has become the state’s first confirmed case of the United Kingdom COVID-19 variant, South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control said.

The person "has an international travel history," the department said.

The U.S. has confirmed at least 434 cases of the B.1.1.7 U.K. variant across 30 states, South Carolina officials said.

"Experts agree that existing vaccines work to protect us from this variant, even if we don’t know just how effective they are," the South Carolina officials said. "At this time, there’s no conclusive evidence to prove that the B.1.1.7 variant causes more severe illness."

ABC News’ Josh Hoyos contributed to this report.


Coachella, Stagecoach canceled

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts and Stagecoach Country Music festivals, set for April, were canceled on Friday by Dr. Cameron Kaiser, health officer for Riverside County, California.

Riverside County’s positivity rate stands at 20%. The county has 0% bed availability in its intensive care units.


US surpasses 90,000 deaths in January

January has been the deadliest month since the pandemic began, with 90,844 total deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. coronavirus death toll stands at 436,810 -- with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention projecting that more than 77,000 deaths could be reported by Feb. 20.


Brazil variant detected in California

California is now the second U.S. state with known detection of the Brazil P.1 variant.

Minnesota health officials confirmed earlier this week the nation's first known COVID-19 case associated with the variant.

Inside Stanford's Clinical Virology Laboratory, Dr. Benjamin Pinsky and his team found two strains of the virus: the Brazil strain and the U.K. strain, KGO reported Saturday morning.

"It's in about 17% of the samples that we've sequenced," Pinsky told KGO.


UK reports world's highest COVID-19 transmission, deaths rates

The United Kingdom now has the highest COVID-19 transmission and death rates of any country in the world, according to the World Health Organization's weekly epidemiological report released Wednesday.

With 383.1 new cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents, the U.K.'s transmission rate is higher than that of the United States, which decreased by 20% over the previous week to 380.6 new cases per 100,000 residents. But the UK appears to be moving in the right direction -- this week showed a 24% decrease in new cases confirmed from the previous week, the report said.

The U.K.'s COVID-19 death rate is also the world's highest, with 12.9 fatalities from the disease per 100,000 residents. The country -- which is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- saw a 13% increase in new deaths over the previous week, according to the report.

In the U.S., the COVID-19 death rate went down by 7% to 6.5 fatalities per 100,000 residents, the report said.

As of Monday, 70 countries have detected cases of a new, more contagious variant of the novel coronavirus that was first identified in the U.K., while 31 nations have cases of another variant that first emerged in South Africa and eight countries have cases of a variant that was first identified in Brazil, according to the report.

ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.