The United States remains the most affected country in the world, while Brazil has now occupied second place in terms of numbers of infected, surpassing Russia.
The countries with the highest death toll are still the US (over 97,000), the United Kingdom (over 36,700), and Italy (over 32,735).
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BEIJING (Sputnik) - China registered 11 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, an increase of eight cases from the day before, and 40 asymptomatic carriers of the virus, the National Health Commission said on Monday.
All of the new coronavirus cases are imported. Out of the 40 asymptomatic cases, only two are imported, the rest are local, the commission said. No new deaths from COVID-19 were reported on Monday.
China now has a total of 82,985 confirmed coronavirus cases, 1,724 of them imported. More than 78,260 people have recovered from COVID-19 in the country, while the death toll stands at 4,634.
On Sunday, China reported three new coronavirus cases and 36 asymptomatic carriers.
The current coronavirus pandemic started in the capital of China’s Hubei Province, the city of Wuhan, in December of last year. On Sunday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that his country was ready to join efforts with the international community in finding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, but said that this process should not be politicized. The minister stressed that during this process, the sovereignty of all countries must be respected, adding that Beijing opposed the "presumption of guilt."
MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - Mexico’s coronavirus death toll increased by 215 over a 24-hour period, while the number of confirmed coronavirus cases has surpassed 68,600 according to the latest data from the country’s Health Ministry.
"According to data updated today, overall 7,394 people have died from COVID complications," Jose Luis Alomia, the director of epidemiology at Mexico’s Ministry of Health, said during a Sunday press conference, broadcast on Twitter.
There are currently more than 14,240 active coronavirus cases in Mexico, the highest figures are reported in Mexico City (3,819) and the state of Mexico (1,481).
On Saturday, Mexico’s health ministry reported that the total number of coronavirus cases in the country stood at 65,856 while the death toll was 7,179. Last Saturday, Mexican Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said that Mexico’s coronavirus death toll had reached 5,045. Thus the country has seen a weekly increase of around 2,000 in the number of COVID-19 fatalities.
Mexico started to lift some of the coronavirus restrictions in areas unaffected by the epidemic on 18 May and plans to begin easing lockdown measures in other regions starting from 1 June.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil has surpassed 363,000 with over 15,800 new cases registered in the country in the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry announced after US President Donald Trump issued an entry ban for foreigners who had been to Brazil in the past two weeks.
According to Sunday data from Brazil’s health ministry, a total of 363,211 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Brazil. In the past 24 hours, 653 people died from COVID-19 in the country, the total death toll stands at 22,666.
On Sunday, Trump banned foreigners from traveling to the United States if they had been to Brazil in the past 14 days. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Sunday that the new travel ban will help ensure that no additional coronavirus infections are imported to the United States. The restrictions will not apply to the flow of commerce between the United States and Brazil, McEnany specified.
Brazil became the country with the second-largest number of coronavirus cases (after the United States) on Friday. Brazil’s coronavirus death toll has been rising rapidly. About a week ago, there were over 15,000 coronavirus deaths registered in the country. On Saturday, Brazil's coronavirus death toll surpassed 22,000. The total number of COVID-19 cases in the country stood at over 347,000 on Saturday.
ANKARA (Sputnik) - Turkey confirmed over 1,100 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, while the death toll increased by more than 30 people in that period, Turkish Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca said.
Turkey now has a total of 156,827 confirmed coronavirus cases with 1,141 new cases registered on Sunday, Koca wrote on Twitter late on Sunday night. The total COVID-19 death toll in the country is 4,340 (32 new deaths were reported on Sunday).
Nearly 118,700 people have recovered from COVID-19 in Turkey with over 1,000 recoveries reported on Sunday, according to the country’s health minister.
On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani discussed reopening land and air borders amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Rouhani told Erdogan that the resumption of trade and the movement of goods was a necessity under the current conditions.
On Friday, Turkey confirmed 952 new coronavirus cases over a 24-hour period, which was the lowest daily increase since March 25, according to Koca.
The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Turkey stood at 154,500 on Friday, while the death toll was 4,276. On Saturday, the total number of cases was 155,686 and the death toll was 4,308.
TEL AVIV (Sputnik) - Israel registered five new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours; as of Sunday night, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country stands at 16,717 while the death toll remains the same, according to the country’s Health Ministry.
There are now 2,285 active coronavirus cases in Israel, the Health Ministry said late on Sunday, 44 people are in grave condition. The total number of recovered individuals stands at 14,153.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the creation of a cabinet to fight COVID-19.
On Saturday, Israel’s Health Ministry reported 29 new coronavirus cases. The death toll stood at 279 on Saturday, the same as that of Thursday night. The number of COVID-19 fatalities remains the same on Sunday with no new deaths reported.
On Wednesday, beaches, museums and places of worship reopened in Israel. Schools have already resumed their work.
Meanwhile in the Gaza Strip, the first coronavirus death was reported on Saturday. The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Palestine now stands at over 50, while the total COVID-19 death toll is four people.
"Forty-four federal subjects... meet the criteria for entering phase one... Our scientists say we will be ready to move to the next stage in two weeks", Anna Popova, the head of the consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, told Rossiya 1 channel.
She said Russia appeared to have flattened the curve and the outlook was "quite stable and favourable". The reproduction number — the average number of people each infected passes the virus to — is below 1 in 25 regions and equals 1 in 17 others.
Russia has avoided the worst-case scenario in which the virus could overload the national health system, the official said, adding the daily infection rate was slowing down. Russia recorded 8,599 new coronavirus cases in the past day, bringing the total to 344,481.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Tunisian Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh has expressed hope that the country's holiday season would resume in early July, Tunisian Mosaique FM radio station reported on Sunday.
Fakhfakh made his statement during a speech on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Tunisia has confirmed a total of 1,048 cases, with the death toll at 48.
Earlier in the month, the minister of major national projects, Lobna Jribi, said that the authorities were planning to resume the work of museums, hotels, and mosques starting 4 June and potentially reopen the entire economy on 14 June.
"Well, the G-7 summit, if it happens in person and we think it will, will take place at the end of June. So we're- I think we're getting very close to the peak, if we're not at the peak already in Washington and if the situation permits it and we think it will, we'd love to have the G-7 in- in person", National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien told CBS news channel, as quoted by its website.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Clinical trials of the Russian drug Favipiravir developed under the brand name Areplivir to treat COVID-19 patients are planned to be completed in 4-8 weeks, Dmitry Pushkar, the Russian Health Ministry's chief urologist and expert responsible for the study, stated.
"We hope that clinical trials will be completed within four to eight weeks, after which documents for [the drug's] registration will be submitted", Pushkar said.
The expert noted that clinical trials of the drug would be carried out on several hundred patients not only in Moscow but also in St. Petersburg and in the Russian republic of Mordovia, where the drug is produced.
During the first stage, the drug will only be used to treat patients with symptoms of medium severity. It will not be used yet on patients in serious condition — the ones who are being treated on artificial lung ventilators — as further studies should be conducted first, Pushkar added.
"It is absolutely certain that the drug will be developed before a vaccine, but we need to work in both directions", the expert said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - It is safe to lift the restrictions imposed in Russia to contain the spread of the new coronavirus after 60-70 percent of the country's population develop immunity, Nikolai Briko, the Health Ministry's chief epidemiologist, said on Sunday.
"Sixty-seventy percent is the level that allows us to say that if there is a pathogen, it will spread to a lesser extent and cause [fewer] new diseases among this group of people. At least, the epidemic process will develop with much less activity and intensity in such a group. Then, you can remove restrictive measures with greater confidence", Briko said in an interview with Russian newspaper Parlamentskaya Gazeta.
At the same time, the epidemiologist said that it would be wrong to wait for the population to develop so-called herd immunity.
Vaccinating a large part of the population is the only tool to effectively stop an airborne infection, Briko added.
On Saturday, the head of the Moscow Healthcare Department, Alexey Khripun, said that lgG antibodies were detected in 12 percent of the over 50,000 Moscow residents tested for coronavirus immunity over the past two weeks, which means that these people are forming or have already formed immunity to the infection.
