BEIJING, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

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LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the United States, reported on Friday 318 coronavirus-related deaths in the past 24 hours, the first time that more than 300 daily new deaths were counted.

The 318 new deaths lift the countywide coronavirus death toll to 11,863. By comparison, an average of 170 people die of all other causes in the county every day and the number is higher than any other single yearly premature deaths, including heart disease.

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BEIJING -- The Chinese mainland on Friday reported 33 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, of whom 17 were locally transmitted and the rest arrived from outside the mainland, the National Health Commission said Saturday.

Fourteen locally transmitted cases were reported in north China's Hebei Province and three in northeastern Liaoning, the commission said in its daily report.

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RIO DE JANEIRO -- A Brazilian woman has become the first person in the world to be re-infected with a variant of the novel coronavirus known as E484K, state-run news agency Agencia Brasil reported on Friday.

The case, discovered by researchers from the D'Or Institute for Research and Education in northeast Bahia, involves a 45-year-old woman who tested positive for COVID-19 in May and tested positive again in October with the mutation. In both cases, the patient did not present serious symptoms.

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BERLIN -- A total of 476,959 people in Germany have been vaccinated against COVID-19 since the beginning of the vaccination program on December 27, up by almost 51,000 within one day, said the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on Friday.

The vaccination rate stood at 5.7 per 1,000 inhabitants in Germany, according to the federal government agency for disease control and prevention RKI.

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KIGALI -- The Rwandan Ministry of Health on Friday inaugurated a new COVID-19 treatment center here as part of its efforts to handle a projected surge in cases following festive celebrations.

"The new facility located at Nyarugenge district hospital is set to significantly improve COVID-19 case management, offering the highest standard of oxygen therapy," Rwanda Biomedical Center Director-General Sabin Nsanzimana told a news program on the national Rwanda Television.