The coronavirus pandemic has killed 400,000 people since it emerged in China late last year, according to an AFP tally of official sources at 1430 GMT on Sunday.
A total of 400,052 deaths have now been recorded — a figure that has doubled in the past month and a half.
While almost half of the deaths have been recorded in Europe (183,428), the United States remains the hardest-hit nation with 109,802 deaths from 1,920,061 cases. Britain is next with 40,542 deaths, followed by Brazil (35,930), Italy (33,846) and France (29,142).
China has to date declared 4,634 deaths and 83,036 infections with 78,332 recoveries.
Europe overall has 183,338 deaths from 2,268,621 cases, the United States and Canada have 117,634 deaths from 2,015,118 infections, Latin America and the Caribbean 64,100 deaths from 1,291,453 cases, Asia 19,244 deaths from 679,622 cases, the Middle East 10,412 deaths from 469,545 cases, Africa 5,048 deaths from 184,068 cases, and Oceania 131 deaths from 8,640 cases.
Meanwhile, Brazil removed from public view months of data on its coronavirus epidemic on June 6, as president Jair Bolsonaro defended delays and changes to official record-keeping of the world’s second-largest coronavirus outbreak, reports The Straits Times.
Brazil’s health ministry removed the data from a web site that had documented the epidemic over time and by state and municipality. The ministry also stopped giving a total count of confirmed cases, which have shot past 672,000 — more than anywhere outside the United States — or a total death toll, which passed Italy this week, nearing 36,000 by Saturday.
‘The cumulative data ... does not reflect the moment the country is in,’ Bolsonaro said on Twitter, citing a note from the ministry. ‘Other actions are underway to improve the reporting of cases and confirmation of diagnoses.’
Bolsonaro has played down the dangers of the pandemic, replaced medical experts in the health ministry with military officials and argued against state lockdowns to fight the virus, hobbling the country’s public health response.
Neither Bolsonaro nor the ministry gave a reason for erasing most of the data on the covid.saude.gov.br website, which had been a key public resource for tracking the pandemic. The page was taken down on Friday and reloaded Saturday with a new layout and just a fraction of the data, reflecting only deaths, cases and recoveries within the last 24 hours.
Iran’s health ministry says a surge in new reported infections is due to increased testing rather than a worsening outbreak.
The UK government announces it will reopen places of worship for individual prayer on June 15, but services and worship groups will remain banned for the time being.
Greece extends for another two weeks a lockdown on its overcrowded migrant camps, affecting more than 33,000 asylum seekers living in camps on the Aegean islands and some 70,000 living in other facilities on the mainland.
Israel says it has opened a factory to make millions of the high-spec N95 masks as it prepares for a possible ‘second wave’ of cases.
The new masks are being made in Sderot, a southern town near the Gaza Strip, using machines imported from China by the defence ministry.
Pope Francis says the worst of the crisis is over in Italy, addressing the faithful for the first time in Saint Peter’s Square since the health emergency began.
‘Your presence in the square is a sign that in Italy the acute phase of the epidemic is over,’ Francis tells those assembled for his weekly Angelus prayer.
‘But be careful... do not celebrate victory too soon’.
China’s exports and imports fell in May, official data shows. Imports saw their sharpest on-year fall in over four years at 16.7 per cent, while exports fell by 3.3 per cent.
Analysts say a deeper downturn in exports is looming for the world’s manufacturing powerhouse.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio early Sunday lifted a curfew he had imposed on the city for nearly a week as anti-racism protests raged there and nationwide.
‘Yesterday and last night we saw the very best of our city,’ de Blasio tweeted in announcing that the curfew was over ‘effective immediately.’
The 800pm to 500am curfew — the city’s first in 75 years — ends a day early on the eve of the city’s ‘reopening’ on Monday after more than two months of sheltering-at-home due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This week New York will enter phase one of the state’s plan to reboot economic activities shuttered due to COVID-19, which caused more than 21,000 confirmed and probable deaths in America’s most populous city.
The initial stage of reopening will allow construction and manufacturing to resume. Retail stores will be allowed limited in-store and curbside pickup.
