Latest On Coronavirus

Latest on Coronavirus

The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world reached 301,000, over 4.42 million cases of infection were detected, and almost 1.58 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 - 15th May, 2020) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world reached 301,000, over 4.42 million cases of infection were detected, and almost 1.58 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 Thursday, the number of people infected globally is 4,420,743, of them 301,160 died.

The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with 1,411,466, including 85,489 fatalities and 243,430 recoveries.

The issue of opening the external borders of the Schengen zone, which were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has not yet been raised in practice, Russian Permanent Representative to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov said.

Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) proposed to lift the coronavirus-related restrictions in the industry in three phases, specifically with regard to who should be allowed to board passenger planes in each phase.

Premature easing of lockdown restrictions put in place in March to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom could undo all the work of the past two months to slow the transmission of the disease, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

The Italian government is working on restoring summer tourism that has been suspended in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and studying opportunities to establish special corridors for tourists from Germany, Russia and China, media reported, citing government sources.

France may allow cafes and restaurants to reopen in early June in the areas where the spread of COVID-19 has considerably slowed, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the plan to reboot the country's education system after the coronavirus-related shutdown beginning May 17.

Georgia will lift restrictions on gatherings of more than three people and allowing beauty salons to reopen on May 18, as the spread of the coronavirus in the country is slowing, Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia said.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned that the nationwide state of emergency would return if there was a second wave of coronavirus infections.

South Korea's automotive giant Hyundai and its subsidiary, Kia, will reopen all overseas factories next week, media said.

NATO is able to conduct all of its missions and operations successfully despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Air Chief Marshal Stuart Peach, the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said. He also warned that "potential adversaries" were increasingly looking to exploit the coronavirus crisis to undermine member states, including by spreading fake news.

Germany expects a decrease in budget revenues by 98.6 billion euros ($106 billion) this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said.

Domestic tourism in Russia is forecast to shrink 20 percent this year to an approximate 1 trillion rubles ($13.5 billion) and cause a chain reaction for the reboot of business, according to a study conducted by the Moscow-based Center for Strategic Research (CSR).

Nearly 3 million more Americans have filed for weekly unemployment claims, the Labor Department said on Thursday, bringing the total number of US job losses from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to around 36 million.

New York City is concerned over the booming number of inflammatory disease linked to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) among children, Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters.

The percentage of Americans giving to charities dropped to lowest in at least 20 years, with rising unemployment due to the novel coronavirus pandemic leaving many households without financial resources to donate, a fresh poll revealed.

A team of Italian researchers has also detected a correlation between the coronavirus and a severe form of Kawasaki disease in children in the northern Italian province of Bergamo, the country's most affected region, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Lancet.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday that the global oil demand in 2020 would fall by 8.6 million barrels per day, revising downward its previous report.

COVID-19 clearly has long-term health effects; the World Health Organization (WHO) is working with several countries to determine their extent, Richard Pebody, team leader for high threat pathogens at the WHO, said.

US President Donald Trump said he had signed an executive order to boost domestic production of crucial supplies needed in response to the novel coronavirus disease.

There are not enough doses of coronavirus trial drug remdesivir because the Trump administration failed to ramp up production and lacks a distribution plan, former government vaccine developer Rick Bright said. The US response to the coronavirus is insufficient and the federal government needs to listen to its scientists if more lives are not to be unnecessarily lost, he added.

Falling energy prices during the pandemic prompted closure of nearly a quarter of onshore US oil rigs outside Alaska, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.

France will unlock an unprecedented 18 billion euros ($19 billion) in aid to rescue its virus-hit tourism sector, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced.

Nearly 50 World Trade Organization (WTO) member states endorsed a joint statement released vowing to support micro, small- and medium-size enterprises (MSME) beset by restrictive measures imposed to combat the novel coronavirus pandemic.

G20 trade and investment ministers adopted a joint declarationy, vowing to work together to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in the short term and support the trading system in the long term.

The Belarusian authorities are interested in the financial assistance of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to help overcome the negative consequences of the coronavirus pandemic on the country's economy, Prime Minister Sergei Roumas said.

The Armenian government is going to change the way it monitors compliance with the coronavirus-related restrictions in the country, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan, who serves as the republican commandant during the state of emergency, said.

Moscow has installed automatic blood test systems and will launch free mass testing for COVID-19 antibodies this week, the Russian capital's mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Over 6.1 million tests to detect COVID-19 have been conducted in Russia since the beginning of the outbreak, and 259,000 suspected carriers across the country are under medical monitoring, the national public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, said.

The general director of Russia's Vektor research center said that trials of the COVID-19 vaccine on 300 volunteers would be completed in June, expressing hope that the vaccine would be registered in September.

Russian biotech company Biocad plans to increase production of its experimental anti-coronavirus drug, levilimab, to 20,000 packs a month starting June, its CEO Dmitry Morozov said.

Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Italian company Kedrion, and investment fund FSI are working on a project to treat the coronavirus with drugs based on blood plasma, the RDIF said.

Developing a vaccine against the coronavirus and enabling it for widespread use will take at least a year, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said.

Providing COVID-19 vaccines to the poorest half of the world's population, which accounts for over 3.5 billion people, could cost less than the four-month profit of the ten largest pharmaceutical companies, international relief group Oxfam said.

UK and US scientists have conducted tests of a COVID-19 vaccine and found that it can successfully prevent the development of pneumonia in rhesus macaques, a type of monkey, research published on the bioRxiv portal revealed.

US President Donald Trump told reporters that he expected a vaccine for COVID-19 to be ready by the end of 2020 and its distribution to start almost immediately.

The European Commission suspended the distribution of medical masks across the bloc after receiving information about their inadequate quality, the commission's spokesman said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is not discouraging the use of a herbal tonic used in Madagascar for the COVID-19 treatment but advising for it to be tested, Regional Director of the WHO Office for Africa, Rebecca Moeti, said.

US President Donald Trump warned on Thursday that Washington could potentially suspend all ties with China as part of its reponse to Beijing's handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned China-affiliated actors of trying to steal research related to COVID-19 and called on Beijing to cease such malicious activity.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg alleged that Russia and China spread disinformation in pursuit of enhancing their influence and destabilizing the situation in the member countries of NATO and the European Union during the coronavirus pandemic.

Russia is concerned over foreign nations' attempts to use the COVID-19 pandemic as an instrument for settling geopolitical scores, including for putting forward accusations against Moscow and Beijing, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said. Moscow considers US accusations against China of spreading the coronavirus as baseless, he added.

Several members of the European Parliament have urged the EU to impose sanctions against Hungary and stop payments to the country in relation to emergency measures taken by the Hungarian authorities amid the coronavirus pandemic, the EU legislature said.

France has lashed out at Paris-based pharmaceutical company Sanofi after one of its top executives in the UK claimed that the United States would receive priority access to its COVID-19 vaccine, sparking contrary assurances from the firm's chief in France that the vaccine would not be prioritized and would be available for every country.