December's figure, roughly equivalent to over 1.6 Americans lost to the virus every minute, marked a significant surge from that in the entire month of November which registered 36,964 fatalities
German national daily Die Welt said that researchers at Hannover Medical School detected the new variant in samples of an elderly patient who teted positive around November and later died
A total of 16,432 new infections were reported in a span of 24 hours, the lowest in little over six months, while the death toll increased to 1,48,153 with 252 new fatalities
Besides England, lockdowns were also introduced in Scotland and Northern Ireland, while restrictions that were eased for Christmas Day in Wales were re-imposed on Saturday