Coronavirus: Peru cases surpass Italy as global deaths near 450,000

More than 8.36 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and more than 449,270 have died, data from Johns Hopkins Unversity shows. The following is the latest news on coronvirus, also known as Covid-19 around the world.

Peru

Peru topped 240,000 total cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, surpassing hard-hit Italy, government data showed, even as the pace of infections has begun to moderate in the South American nation. Peru moved quickly to lock down its citizens as the pandemic took hold in early March. But cases nonetheless exploded in May, reaching a peak of more than 8,000 per day late in the month. More than 7,000 Peruvians have died from the disease, the government reported. Peru has the second highest number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Latin America, behind Brazil, and the seventh highest globally. The Americas have become the epicenter of the global coronavirus outbreak, logging nearly 4 million infections and 204,000 deaths. Peru, Chile and Brazil have been particularly hard hit in recent weeks. Peru’s government has extended a national lockdown through June 30, as infections continue to increase in some regions. The country reported 3,752 new infections on Wednesday, down by more than half since their peak on May 31st.

China

Beijing has brought its latest coronavirus outbreak under control, a Chinese medical expert said on Thursday, although the capital can still expect sporadic new cases. The city has recorded 158 infections since confirming the first on June 11th in its worst outbreak since early February, which has been traced to the sprawling wholesale food centre of Xinfadi in its southwest. Despite just a few cases compared to numbers outside China, authorities have acted quickly to curb contagion risks in the capital, which had recently won praise for its tough countermeasures. A few days after the first case, the city returned to a level two alert, the second-highest in a four-tier virus emergency response system, leading to new curbs on residents’ movements. “The epidemic in Beijing has been brought under control,” said Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China’s Center for Diseases Prevention and Control. Going by recent case numbers, June 13 was the peak of the current outbreak, Mr Wu told a regular news conference a day after new confirmed cases fell to 21, from 31 the previous day.

South Korea

South Korea reported 59 cases as infections continue to steadily rise in the greater capital area. The figures announced by South Korea’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday brought the national caseload to 12,257, including 280 deaths. It said 39 of the new cases came from Seoul and its metropolitan area, where health authorities have been scrambling to stem transmissions amid increased economic activity and eased attitudes on social distancing.

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New Zealand

New Zealand recorded on Thursday its third new case of the coronavirus this week as quarantine breaches and other failures undermined public confidence days after it declared itself among the first countries in the world to be free of the virus. The new case is a man in his 60s who flew in from Lahore in Pakistan, via Doha and Melbourne on June 11th, and is in quarantine. It comes after two women who had arrived from Britain and were given permission to leave quarantine early on compassionate grounds tested positive. The government has been forced to explain why the women were let out without proper testing, and questions were raised about whether quarantine facilities are being properly managed. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern on Wednesday called in the military to oversee the facilities and to manage border defences.

US

Several US states including Oklahoma reported a surge in new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, days before a planned campaign rally for president Donald Trump in Tulsa that would be the nation’s largest indoor social gathering in three months. An uptick in coronavirus cases in many states over the past two weeks, along with rising Covid-19 hospitalisations, reflected a troubling national trend that has seen daily US infection numbers climbing after more than a month of declines. Oklahoma reported a record 259 new cases over the previous 24 hours, while Florida reported more than 2,600 new cases and Arizona more than 1,800 - the second-highest daily increases for those two states. In Arizona, where doctors, nurses and health administrators called for making face coverings mandatory statewide in public places, Governor Doug Ducey said he would let local officials decide whether to impose such rules and how to enforce them. The Navajo Nation has reimposed 57-hour weekend curfews to protect citizens from a surge in coronavirus cases in neighboring Arizona. Texas reported 3,100 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, its biggest single-day tally yet, along with another all-time high for Covid-19 hospitalisations - nearly 2,800 patients. That marks the sixth straight day in which the number of patients currently admitted for the highly contagious respiratory virus has reached record numbers in Texas.

Brazil

Brazil recorded 1,269 additional Covid-19 deaths on Wednesday, bringing its official death toll from the novel coronavirus to 46,510, the most in the world outside the United States. The Health Ministry also registered 32,188 new cases of the virus since its Tuesday update, for a total of 955,377 confirmed cases.

Mexico

Mexico’s health ministry on Wednesday reported 4,930 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections and 770 additional fatalities.

Russia

Russia on Thursday reported 7,790 new cases of the coronavirus, its lowest daily rise in infections in six weeks, bringing the nationwide total to 561,091.

Germany

A German meatpacking plant was ordered to shut after hundreds of workers became infected by the coronavirus, adding to a string of outbreaks at slaughterhouses across Europe. After testing more than 1,000 employees at a Toennies GmbH factory near the western German city of Guetersloh, preliminary results showed that 657 had the disease, prompting the shutdown of the facility, according to local officials. Schools and childcare facilities were ordered to close starting Friday until the start of the summer break on June 26th, though there are no plans for a broader lockdown.Meanwhile, Germany’s smartphone app to help trace coronavirus infections has been downloaded 6.5 million times in the first 24 hours since its launch, the CEO of software company SAP said.

South Africa

South Africa will ease lockdown rules for a third time since imposing them in March and allow a range of businesses including eat-in restaurants, casinos and beauty salons to reopen despite a steep increase in coronavirus infections.South Africa has 80,412 confirmed coronavirus infections and 1,674 fatalities, with the number of cases currently doubling about every 12 days. There have been more than 2,100 new cases daily for the past 14 days, a proliferation that in part reflects increased testing. While initially the vast majority of people diagnosed with the disease were from Cape Town and the surrounding Western Cape province, the caseload has recently spiked in the Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, the economic hub, and Pretoria, the capital, as well as in the Eastern Cape province.