Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Updates

More than 315,000 dead

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 315,270 people since the outbreak first emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT yesterday. At least 4,727,220 cases of coronavirus have been registered in 196 countries and territories. The United States has the highest number of deaths overall with 89,564 from 1,486,742 cases. Britain has the second highest toll, with 34,636 deaths. It is followed by Italy with 31,908 deaths, France with 28,108 deaths and Spain with 27,650 fatalities.

Remdesivir close to EU nod

The head of the European Union's medicines agency Guido Rasi yesterday said an initial authorisation for US pharmaceutical company Gilead's remdesivir as a COVID-19 treatment could be granted in coming days. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has already recommended the compassionate use of remdesivir, which allows a drug to be administered to patients even before it has been fully authorised.

Japan slides into recession

Japan dived into its first recession since 2015, according to official data, with the world's third-largest economy shrinking by 0.9 percent in the first quarter as it wrestles with the fallout from the coronavirus. The drop in gross domestic product followed a 1.9 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2019 as a tax hike and typhoons hit Japan hard -- even before the pandemic shut down much of the economy.

'Deadliest' April in Belgium

 Coronavirus brought Belgium its deadliest April since World War 2 last month, according to a new study as the country begins slowly to lift lockdown measures. A total of 14,790 people died in Belgium last month as COVID-19 swept the nation -- substantially higher than the normal April total of deaths below 9,000, researchers from VUB university in Brussels found. Not since the Nazi occupation of the 1940s has Belgium seen such a high mortality rate in April.

Cases declining in Russia

Russia yesterday reported 8,926 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours, pushing its nationwide case tally to 290,678. The daily rise in cases was for the third day in a row below 10,000, a threshold that it has been above for much of May. Russia's coronavirus taskforce said 91 people had died overnight, bringing the death toll to 2,722.

Source: AFP, Reuters