The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world surpassed 231,000, more than 3.26 million cases of infection were detected, and more than 1 million 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
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st May, 2020) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world surpassed 231,000, more than 3.26 million cases of infection were detected, and more than 1 million 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 3,260,964, of them 231,808 died.
The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with 1,056,466. This includes 125,636 recoveries and 61,881 fatalities.
Germany wants to reopen schools and cultural and sport venues after coronavirus restrictions and will decide on the timing on May 6, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
The Portuguese prime minister said Thursday the country would start easing the lockdown next week after seeing a slowdown in virus infections.
The authorities in the European principality of Liechtenstein are planning to lift a number of the social distancing measures imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19 from May 15, allowing restaurants, museums and other public establishments to reopen, the government said.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte criticized the regions that plan to soften the lockdown measures against COVID-19 ahead of the government's schedule.
The current epidemiological situation in Scotland makes it unlikely for the government to remove the coronavirus-related lockdown at the next meeting on May 7, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.
The government of Thailand has approved letting certain categories of businesses resume operations beginning May 3, subject to approval by their respective local authorities and adherence to social distancing norms, Taweesin Wisanuyothin, spokesman for the Thai COVID-19 response center, said.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told President Vladimir Putin that he had tested positive for the coronavirus and would now go into self-isolation. Mishustin has suggested Andrei Belousov, the deputy prime minister, to act as the head of the government temporarily. Putin has signed the decree on Belousov's appointment.
The European Union's GDP fell by 2.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020, the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) said.
US job losses from the pandemic have reached nearly 30 million as another 3.8 million Americans filed for jobless claims for the first time last week, the Labor Department said.
The Canadian economy is projected to contract by 12 percent in 2020 � the largest decline in the country's recorded history � amid the pandemic, a report from the country's Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer said.
France has in the first quarter this year seen its sharpest economic contraction since 1949, as the country's GDP dropped by 5.8 percent due to coronavirus-related measures introduced in mid-March, the official statistics agency, INSEE, said.
The Croatian economy is predicted to contract by 9.4 percent in 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the country's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said.
Chile in the first quarter of 2020 experienced its sharpest job-loss trend in 10 years with the unemployment rate reaching 8.2 percent due to the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, the National Statistics Institute of Chile (INE) said.
The global energy demand will fall by 6 percent in 2020 in what might be the biggest drop in 70 years, and the worldwide CO2 emissions will decrease by 8 percent over the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Energy Agency said.
The 2020 edition of the Boao Forum for Asia, an annual conference seen as the regional alternative to the World Economic Forum in Davos, has been canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the organizers said.
Prague officials responsible for the removal of a monument to Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev used the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as a pretext for their "barbaric action," Russia's representative at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Alexander Lukashevich, said.
The coronavirus pandemic revealed that health should be prioritized above everything else, and that health is a key to the economy and national security, WHO European Director Hans Henri P. Kluge said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday he regrets that in the time of the coronavirus crisis the relations among the world's superpowers are dysfunctional and that it was not possible to establish a mechanism of strong leadership to fight the pandemic.
G7 Finance Ministers have discussed ways to accelerate economic activity after the reopening of economies shuttered by the pandemic, the US Treasury said in a statement after their telephone conference.
The fight against COVID-19 in the United States is expected to last between six months and a year, US Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord said.
The Japanese upper house has approved a draft supplementary budget for the new fiscal year in the amount of 25.6 trillion yen ($237 billion) to be poured into coronavirus-affected businesses and population.
Switzerland will allocate 400 million Swiss francs ($410 million) of interest-free loans for international efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic and half of these funds will be received by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Swiss government said.
Russia has sent tonnes of medical equipment to two African countries, Algeria and Djibouti, fighting the coronavirus outbreak, the Russian embassies said.
Turkey has sent the second military aircraft to the United States to deliver medical supplies as part of the COVID-19 relief efforts, NATO said.
The US space agency is teaming up with its European and Japanese counterparts to host scientists, engineers and other creative people for an online gathering to seek new solutions to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) said.
The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) is monitoring organized criminal groups that are attempting to exploit the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
Lockdowns implemented across Europe to curb the spread of COVID-19 have caused 11,000 fewer air pollution deaths over a 30-day period as oil and coal consumption have dropped dramatically across the continent, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has donated a $100,000 prize awarded by the Danish non-governmental organization Human Act to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to help the organization protect children from COVID-19.
Russia has a lower mortality rate than other countries due to a well-organized health care system, WHO spokeswoman in Russia Melita Vujnovic said.
Russia's largest commercial bank Sberbank said it would allocate more than 3 billion rubles ($40.5 million) to combat the coronavirus pandemic, including the creation and production of vaccines and drugs against the virus, as well as creating conditions for their accessibility to Russians.
The UK-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, the newly signed partner of the Oxford University in leading the national effort for the coronavirus vaccine development, would know if the vaccine is working as early as by June or July, CEO Pascal Soriot said.
Several Indian states have begun to test plasma therapy treatment for those infected with the coronavirus, the Times of India newspaper reported.
Scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), working in association with the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), have developed a method for detecting COVID-19 in wastewater samples, EPFL said.
The scientific community is inclined to think there might be a second and even a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lothar Wieler, the president of Robert Koch Institute (RKI) which compiles official data on the coronavirus for the German government, said.
The US intelligence community believes that the novel coronavirus was neither man-made nor genetically modified, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said.
US officials should mind that China has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic the same way as the rest of the world before trying to put the blame for the outbreak on Beijing, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said at a briefing.
