The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with more than 4.1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, including over 146,400 fatalities.
The government of the United Kingdom on Friday announced plans to offer as many as 30 million people in England a free vaccine against influenza amid fears that the annual flu season will coincide with a surge in COVID-19 cases.
BEIJING (Sputnik) - China has diagnosed 46 new COVID-19 cases and 68 asymptomatic carriers within the last 24 hours, the National Health Commission said on Sunday.
On Saturday, the number of new cases was 34, while the number of new asymptomatic carriers was 74.
According to the commission, 22 cases have been detected in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, 13 in the Liaoning province, while 11 are imported ones.
China has confirmed a total of 83,830 cases, with a death toll of 4,634.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - More than 51,000 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in Brazil in the past 24 hours, while the death toll increased by over 1,200 in that period, according to the latest data from the Health Ministry.
Brazil now has a total of 2,394,513 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 51,147 new cases having been registered in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Saturday. Over the same period, 1,211 new deaths were confirmed, bringing the country's total death toll up to 86,449.
On Friday, Brazil reported 55,891 new COVID-19 cases and over 1,150 new coronavirus-related deaths. A week ago, Brazil’s coronavirus death toll stood at around 78,700, thus the country has seen a weekly rise of about 8,000 coronavirus-related fatalities, one thousand more than the previous weekly rise.
Over 1.6 million people have recovered from COVID-19 in Brazil since the start of the epidemic in the country, according to the health ministry.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Further nine coronavirus patients have died in Moscow in the past day, bringing the Russian city's death toll to 4,398, the COVID-19 response centre said Saturday.
"Nine patients died in Moscow. All of them were confirmed to have pneumonia and had tested positive for coronavirus", the health authority said in a statement.
The city reported 14 new virus-related deaths the day before. Russia is the world's fourth worst-hit country in terms of coronavirus cases, with over 800,000 testing positive.
Florida surpassed New York on Saturday to become the United States' second worst-hit state in terms of coronavirus infections, official figures showed.
The Florida Department of Health said it recorded 12,199 new cases and 124 deaths in the past day, bringing the total to 414,511 cases, with 5,777 deaths.
The state of New York has so far confirmed 411,200 cases. California, a US state with the largest population, is leading the national count with more than 440,000 cases.
Shivraj Singh Chauhan, the governor of the central Madhya Pradesh state in India, has tested positive for the new coronavirus, the hospital treating him said Saturday.
"Hon'ble Shri Shivraj Singh Ji Chauhan tested Covid-19 positive. All requires tests have been carried out and the results have been found normal. His condition is normal," Chiray Medical Hospital said in a bulletin shared by the regional government.
The regional authority said the chief minister had called on people who had recently come into contact with him to get tested for the coronavirus.
India is the third worst-hit country in the world in terms of COVID-19 infections, with more than 1.3 million cases and over 31,000 deaths. Madhya Pradesh has so far confirmed over 26,000 cases, with some 7,500 people being in hospital care.
Russian researchers will run tests on bats populating Siberia to see if they carry coronavirus strains, a senior official of the Federal Research Center for Fundamental and Translational Medicine told Sputnik.
"Bats are one of the species believed to have introduced coronavirus into the human population. We have many bat species here that also live in China, so it is interesting to see if they carry the virus," Alexander Shestopalov, the head of the Experimental Modeling and Pathogen Department, said.
Shestopalov said his department had been given two years' worth of funding for the coronavirus research, and he hoped to glean the first insights into the presence of coronaviruses in bat genomes as soon as this winter.
Bulgarian and Romanian air travelers will be asked to prove they tested negative for coronavirus when they come to Greece, the General Secretariat for Civil Protection said Saturday.
"Based on the analysis of epidemiological data, it was decided that those flying into Greece from Bulgaria and Romania will be required to show a negative molecular (PCR) result for coronavirus from Tuesday morning, July 28, until August 4," it said.
The test result will be valid for up to 72 hours. Greek citizens and holders of residence permits as well as travelers coming for emergency reasons will be exempted.
Greece saw coronavirus infections rebound after reopening its borders to EU nationals on July 1. The country reported 26 new cases on Friday, bringing the total to 4,135, including 201 deaths. Bulgaria's tally has passed 10,000.
The IX St. Petersburg open-air International All Together Opera Festival which opens in August and will be the first festival since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, will become a symbol of "rebirth for the Russian cultural life," the musical director or the festival, Fabio Mastrangelo, told Sputnik.
"To let go of a festival which, next year, is planned to celebrate its tenth anniversary was really not an option for us... Of course, we will not have our typical biblical crowds - last year, for the closing performance of The Barber of Seville 25 thousand attended. However, even with limitations, we consider this a privilege and a sign of rebirth for Culture in our country," Mastrangelo, who is also an Artistic Director of the St. Petersburg State Music Hall Theater, said.
The festival is due to take place from 8-22 August.
As COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the globe, world major tourist attractions, museums, theaters and cultural events were canceled and closed for months devastating the cultural and entertainment industry for which the ban on gathering and losses from ticket sales are often critical.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has tested positive for the new coronavirus twice since falling ill earlier in July, said on Saturday that a third test had come back negative.
"RT-PCR for Sars-Cov 2: negative," he tweeted, adding "a good day to all."
The tweet was accompanied by a photo of the 65-year-old right-wing politician giving the thumbs-up. Bolsonaro has been widely criticized in his country for downplaying the outbreak as "a little flu."
French Health Minister Olivier Veran refused to rule out renewed border closures if cases of coronavirus increase.
"Nothing can be ruled out in advance," Veran said, commenting on the possibility of renewed borders closures in an interview with Le Monde.
A day prior, French authorities recommended that citizens avoid visiting Spanish Catalonia due to the worsening epidemiological situation there.
Veran added that the "social, economic and psychological" cost of going back into lockdown would be too high.
Restrictive measures and mandatory closures of businesses have been gradually lifted in France as the daily COVID-19 infections and fatalities have deflated. Apprehensions remain that France may follow the now-global trend of new spreads following a resumption of public life.
Russia has registered 5,871 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours (5,848 yesterday), bringing the cumulative total to 806,720, the country's coronavirus response center said on Thursday.
"Over the past 24 hours, Russia has confirmed 5,871 COVID-19 cases in 83 regions," the response center said in a statement, adding that the total count has now reached 806,720..
Moscow has registered 648 cases in the past 24 hours, which is more than any other region in Russia, followed by the Sverdlovsk Region with 251 cases and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region with 193 new cases (compared to 645, 248 and 196 yesterday, respectively).
The lowest number of new cases were detected in the Jewish Autonomous Region, with three new cases and the Chukotka Autonomous Region, registering one case in the past 24 hours.
As many as 146 COVID-19 patients died in Russia over the past 24 hours (154 on the previous day), which brings the death toll to 13,192.
A total of 8,366 coronavirus patients have been discharged (compared to 8,444 on the previous day), bringing the total number of recoveries to 597,140.
The number of people who have recovered from infection with COVID-19 has exceeded the 9 million mark on Saturday, according to the global tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
According to the university, which has become the de facto go-to source on COVID-19 statistics, the total number of recovered has reached 9,043,203 from over 15.7 million infections. At the same time, 639,652 people have lost their lives to the disease.
The United States alone accounts for nearly 1.26 million recoveries, as the nation has become the worst affected by the pandemic in the world.
Germany has confirmed 781 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, with the total count reaching 204,964, the Robert Koch Institute said on Saturday.
The death toll has grown by seven to 9,118 people within the same period of time. Some 189,800 people have recovered since the start of the outbreak.
A day earlier, the country confirmed 815 new coronavirus cases and 10 fatalities.
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Korea has risen by 113 to 14,092 over the past day, marking the biggest daily increase since April, the Health Ministry's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said on Saturday.
Out of 113 new cases, 27 resulted from the internal transmission and 86 are imported ones.
The death toll stands at 298 people while the number of recovered people has increased to 12,866.
