Latest On Coronavirus

The worldwide number of confirmed coronavirus cases has surpassed 12 million and now amounts to 12,123,257, with the number of fatalities totaling 551,384, according to the Johns Hopkins University

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 10th July, 2020) The worldwide number of confirmed coronavirus cases has surpassed 12 million and now amounts to 12,123,257, with the number of fatalities totaling 551,384, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that global leaders had known "for years" that a pandemic was inevitable, but the world was still unprepared for the COVID-19 outbreak. Tedros also announced the chairs of a panel tasked with evaluating the international response to the pandemic.

Reacting to a call from over 200 scientists, the WHO updated its data on COVID-19 transmission, saying it does not rule out aerosol transmission in indoor settings, such as offices or restaurants, and urging more studies.

The United States is still leading the world in the number of coronavirus cases and fatalities, with the case count totaling 3,084,690 and the death toll amounting to 132,803.

Brazil, ranking second, has recorded 44,571 new cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total count to 1,713,160, the Health Ministry said. The death toll amounts to 67,964.

India has registered over 24,800 new cases, pushing the total to 767,296, and the death toll has grown by 487 to 21,129, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The ministry also noted that India's coronavirus number of deaths per 1 million people is among the world's lowest.

Russia has registered 6,509 coronavirus cases in 24 hours, which brings the cumulative total to 707,301, the coronavirus response center said Thursday, adding that the death toll has increased by 176 to 10,843.

There have been no new locally transmitted cases of the coronavirus for the third day in a row in Beijing, which overall confirmed 335 COVID-19 cases over the past month after authorities identified a new cluster related to a major food market, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, citing the municipal health commission.

Seventeen demonstrators and 19 police officers suffered light injuries, as Belgrade protests over the coronavirus-linked curfew continued for the second night in a row, the local health authorities said on Thursday.

The damage only from the first night of unrest in the Serbian capital over the planned coronavirus curfew is estimated at 15 million dinars ($144,400), Deputy Mayor Goran Vesic said on Thursday.

The unrest in Serbia over the last two days has been an attempt to start a civil war, Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin said Thursday.

Serbia will toughen its coronavirus restrictions by banning gatherings of more than 10 people inside and outside, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said Thursday, following protests.

Reports about alleged Russian trace in the protests against the planned coronavirus curfew in the Serbian capital are just a hoax aimed at affecting the bilateral partnership, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

New Zealand police will maintain permanent presence at quarantine facilities across the country following escapes from isolation hotels in Auckland, RNZ radio station reported, citing Air Force chief Darryn Webb, in charge of observing the quarantine.

Th Iraqi parliament's response center said on Thursday that the country entered the third stage of the coronavirus epidemic, and a 14-day round-the-clock curfew would be "the best option."

The UK government has allowed outdoor theater and music performances from July 11, with nail salons set to open on July 13, and sports centers and swimming pools on July 25, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden announced on Thursday.

Estonia will relax restrictions on public gatherings and sport events from July 15, Prime Minister Juri Ratas said on Thursday.

The mandatory mask regime on the streets of Moscow will be lifted from July 13, but the requirement for social distance remains, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in his blog.

Russia may resume regular direct flights to foreign destinations, most likely to member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, in August, Russian Union of Travel Industry President Andrei Ignatyev said on Thursday.

Belarusian Health Ministry on Thursday announced the removal of 12 states from the list of countries to which Minsk applies mandatory quarantine rules, which require all travelers to spend 14 days in self-isolation due to COVID-19.

The UAE's state-owned flag carrier, Emirates, will resume flights to six more cities Geneva, Los Angeles, Dar es Salaam, Prague, Sao Paulo and Boston from July-August after several months of suspension due to the worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus, according to the company's press release on Thursday.

Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza signed a temporary ban on entry from 13 countries with a high spread of COVID-19, the Health Ministry said on Thursday. According to the ministry, a decree signed earlier in the day prohibits entry and transit of those who visited or traveled through Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile, North Macedonia, Moldova, Oman, Panama, Peru, Kuwait and the Dominican Republic in the previous 14 days.

Hunger created by the measures imposed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus threatens to add 12,000 victims to the daily death toll in nations that have suffered from food crises prior the pandemic, the international aid group Oxfam said in a press release on Thursday.

Some 1.3 million more Americans filed for first-time unemployment claims last week as a new wave of coronavirus infections hit the world's largest economy, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

One of the biggest lessons learned during the novel coronavirus pandemic is that the US is vulnerable to disruptions by offshore suppliers, particularly in adversarial nations such as China, US Defense Undersecretary for Acquisition Ellen Lord told a forum sponsored by the Brookings Institution.

The Canadian federal deficit is projected to soar to a record-high $254.19 billion in fiscal year 2020-21, the Economic and Fiscal Snapshot 2020 revealed on Wednesday.

Some 68 percent of Italians are concerned about their private economic situation following the coronavirus lockdown, an opinion poll by Italian research institute CENSIS has revealed.

Argentinian doctors have started using respiratory oxygen to deliver extra oxygen to coronavirus patients,

A group of scientists from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and a university hospital in Cologne has managed to identify 28 antibodies with a high potential for neutralizing the coronavirus.

Moderna Therapeutics' novel coronavirus vaccine will likely be subjected to advanced clinical trials by the end of July and a working vaccine could be ready by end of 2020 or next year, US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci said on Thursday.

The US Moderna biotechnology company, which is developing a vaccine against the coronavirus infection, announced on Thursday its collaboration with Spain's ROVI pharmaceutical company on the vaccine's large-scale manufacturing.

Russia and Indonesia will work together to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus, and the memorandum of cooperation between the ministries of health of the two countries is being prepared, Russia's trade representative in Indonesia, Sergei Rossomakhov, said on Thursday.

The Russian embassy in Guatemala together with the Russian Direct Investment Fund will hold a presentation of the Avifavir medication against COVID-19 for Latin America and the Caribbean on July 10, the embassy told Sputnik on Wednesday.

State laboratories in Paraguay may soon face a shortage in reagents for conducting tests to detect COVID-19, Graciela Russomando, a coordinator for the National Health Service, said.

The UK government's chaotic COVID-19 data collection has led to confusion regarding the real number of infections in the country, although they have served the authorities' purpose of showing rising testing capacity at each daily press conference, the Sky News broadcaster reported, citing sources.