MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th April, 2020) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world surpassed 226,000, more than 3.17 million cases of infection were detected, and more than 964,000 of those patients were cured, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University, which tracks and compiles data from federal and local authorities, media and other sources.
As of 21.00 GMT, the number of people infected globally is 3,179,494, of them 226,173 died.
The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with 1,034,884, up about 22,000 over the past day. This includes 117,114 recoveries and 60,316 fatalities.
The Finnish authorities see no reason for extending the self-isolation regime for children who will be returning to nurseries and Primary schools on May 14.
Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski signed a decree ordering to keep full border controls on the land borders until May 13.
Switzerland will soften entry restrictions for people coming from the EU countries as well as from European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member states, Karin Keller-Sutter, the head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police, said.
The Canadian province of Manitoba will begin phasing out some of the restrictions implemented to fight the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Premier Brian Pallister announced on Wednesday. Manitoba is the latest Canadian province to announce plans to ease COVID-19 restrictions following New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Quebec.
Kenya imposed restrictions on movement in two of the world's largest refugee camps on Wednesday to prevent a potentially disastrous spread of COVID-19.
The US economy shrank by 4.8 percent in the first three months of 2020 due to the pandemic, its sharpest decline since the Great Recession, the Commerce Department said.
Over 300 million people across the world will lose jobs, and 1.6 billion people will lose livelihoods due to the quarantine measures imposed worldwide to contain the coronavirus pandemic, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said.
Moscow has urged Washington to release Bogdana Osipova and Konstantin Yaroshenko, currently incarcerated in the US jail system, and all Russian citizens imprisoned or under investigation on humanitarian grounds due to the prevalence of COVID-19 in US penitentiaries, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Nearly one third of German businesses express doubt that they will be able to survive more than three months of restrictive measures introduced by the government over the COVID-19 pandemic, while over 50 percent of companies expect bankruptcies in case of a six-month lockdown, Munich-based Institute for Economic Research (ifo) said in its survey.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's public speeches on coronavirus response have had a significant effect on consumer behavior in the country, a study by economic research institutes ifo and DIW revealed.
Airlines in March witnessed the biggest drop in passenger demand in recent history caused by the restrictions imposed over the pandemic, the International Air Transport Association said.
Launches from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana, which was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, will resume in mid-June with the launch of the Vega rocket, French space transportation company Arianespace said.
Ten percent of Boeing's employees going to be fired or not replaced because of a collapse in demand for airliners amid COVID-19 pandemic, President and CEO Dave Calhoun told workers in a letter.
Approximately 11.3 million French workers, or more than one in two employees, are currently receiving state salary compensation under the partial unemployment program, which was introduced to offset the negative consequences of the coronavirus-related lockdown for businesses, Labour Minister Muriel Penicaud told the France Inter broadcaster.
A group of 30 prominent individuals currently serving prison terms, including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Catalan separatist politicians, have appealed to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in a collective letter to describe the deplorable situation in their detention facilities amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), a pro-independence civil organization, said.
The organization of the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo does not depend on development of a vaccine against the COVID-19 infection, John Coates, the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) coordination commission, said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) will convene an emergency meeting on coronavirus on Thursday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
The European Union should develop a plan on how to protect essential infrastructure and cross-border supply chains in case of new pandemics, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said.
The EU decided to provide more than 3.3 billion Euros ($3.57 billion) to support the countries of the Western Balkans in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the European Commission said.
The US House of Representatives created a committee to monitor the $2 trillion in spending on coronavirus relief efforts, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
New York City will partner with the US Department of Defense to support the mental health of frontline workers fighting the pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
Canada processed more than 10.15 million applications for the coronavirus emergency response benefit, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, Carla Qualtrough said.
The Chinese authorities over the past three weeks delivered more than 22 million pieces of protective equipment and over 1,000 ventilators to help the United Kingdom in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK government said.
Russia is developing a test system aimed at detecting antibodies in blood plasma, which can be used to treat patients with the coronavirus, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said.
US President Donald Trump said that the recent clinical trials of the drug Remdesivir by manufacturer Gilead Sciences to treat COVID-19 patients was a "positive event." Earlier in the day, Gilead published a report that more than half of nearly 400 severely ill COVID-19 patients treated with Remdesivir in a recent clinical trial had recovered from the disease and had been discharged from hospitals within 14 days.
The WHO hopes that Remdesevir and other drugs prove helpful in COVID-19 treatment, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme Michael J. Ryan said.
The WHO will boost coronavirus test deliveries to Africa in the coming weeks, Ryan also said.
Private developers will share $500 million in prize money for successfully creating quick, easy to use coronavirus tests for US households and healthcare workers treating suspected virus victims in an effort to saturate the United States with diagnostic tools by the end of the summer, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said.
Many asymptomatic COVID-19 cases will be detected after May 11, when the French authorities plan to carry out massive testing of the population under the lockdown exit strategy, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said.
The UK government said Wednesday it would pay Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, an annual $410 million over the next five years to fund immunization of 75 million children worldwide.
The UK Ministry of Defense will test the effectiveness of a product commonly found in insect repellent to kill the coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19, at the Porton Down chemical warfare research facility, national media reported.
Qatari state-run defense company Barzan Holding started producing ventilators to treat COVID-19 patients within the country and export them to other countries hit by the pandemic.
Doctors at Stanford Children's Hospital in the United States have treated a child with a rare inflammatory syndrome that has been linked to COVID-19, the CNN broadcaster reported.
US President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he was not happy with early results coming from the US inquiry into the World Health Organization (WHO) and China regarding their handling of COVID-19 outbreak.
The United States believes China has multiple laboratories working on contagious pathogens, but it is unknown whether they have proper security measures in place to prevent an outbreak, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.
