Adopting a soft approach, Sweden's cases pass 70,000 mark – latest updates

Thursday, July 2

Turkey's daily recoveries exceed new cases

Turkey confirmed 1,186 more cases of the novel coronavirus, bringing the total tally over 200,000, according to the country's health minister.

Citing the Health Ministry data, Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter that a total of 1,543 more Covid-19 patients recovered in Turkey over the past 24 hours, bringing the overall number to 176,965.

The country's death toll from the disease rose to 5,167, with 17 new fatalities reported over the last 24 hours.

French death toll rises by 14 to 29,875

The number of deaths in France from the new coronavirus has risen by 14 from the previous day to 29,875, the country's health department said on Thursday.

The number of people in hospital fell by 188 to 8,148 and the number of people in intensive care units fell by nine to 573, with both numbers continuing weeks-long downtrends.

Florida reports 10,000 daily cases

Florida has reported 10,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases for the first time.

That daily number is six times higher than the daily record less than a month ago. The state also reported 67 deaths for the second time in a week.

The seven-day average for daily deaths is now back over 40, a 30 percent increase from two weeks ago. The state’s death rate peaked at 60 per day in early May and declined to 30 by mid-June.

Sweden's confirmed cases surpass 70,000

Sweden's number of confirmed Covid-19 cases crossed the 70,000 mark, while deaths rose by 41 to 5,411, health agency statistics showed.

Sweden recorded 947 new cases to put the total at 70,639. Expanded testing has seen daily new cases soar over the past month, eclipsing rates elsewhere in the European Union, but deaths and hospitalisations have tumbled from peaks in April.

The country adopted a softer approach to fighting the new coronavirus, spurning a hard lockdown and putting its pandemic strategy in the international spotlight.

Sweden's death toll has been many times higher relative to the size of the population than that of its Nordic neighbours, where authorities took a stricter approach, but lower than in some countries that locked down, such as Britain, Italy and Spain.

Swiss restrict entry from 29 countries

Travellers to Switzerland from 29 countries will from July 6 have to register with the authorities and go into self-isolation to prevent a resurgence of the coronavirus, the government said.

The list includes the United States, Sweden, Brazil and Russia, which have been designated as countries with a high risk of infection.

Visitors who have spent time in the named countries in the previous 14 days must notify the Swiss authorities immediately on arrival and then go into quarantine for 10 days, the government said. 

French medics sue over mask, equipment shortages

A collective of French healthcare workers said it is seeking a broad legal inquiry into France’s failure to protect its members and their colleagues by providing adequate masks, gloves and other protective equipment as the coronavirus swept across the country.

The professional association, Collectif Inter Urgences, (Inter-Emergencies Collective), said it was filing a four-count civil complaint alleging manslaughter, involuntary harm, voluntary failure to prevent damage and endangering the life of others.

French healthcare workers are already wondering whether they can make it through a second wave of outbreak.

South Africa reports record 8,124 new cases

In South Africa, authorities reported 8,124 new cases, a new daily record. The country has the most cases in Africa with more than 159,000, as it loosens what had been one of the world’s strictest lockdowns.

Johannesburg is a new hot spot with hundreds of health workers infected and Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, has more than 45,000 confirmed cases. 

The African continent has more than 405,000 confirmed cases overall.

Africa lost almost $55 billion in travel and tourism

African countries have lost almost $55 billion in travel and tourism revenues in three months due to the coronavirus pandemic, the African Union commissioner for infrastructure and energy said.

Amani Abou-Zeid told a news conference that due to the prolonged lockdown and border closures to curb the spread of the virus, the airline industry will be greatly impacted.

"Some airlines in the continent will not make it post-Covid-19," she said. 

As cases in Tokyo surge, Japan gives expert advisory panel a makeover

With new coronavirus cases in Tokyo surging to a two-month high, Japan faces the prospect of a second wave without the experts who tackled the first phase of the epidemic.

Instead, a new panel comprising a Nobel-prize winning geneticist, an artificial intelligence expert and a cardiologist will advise the government, as Japan seeks to revitalise its recession-hit economy.

Tokyo confirmed 107 more infections on Thursday, many in young adults who had visited entertainment venues, officials said.

Spain to pass $50B corporate aid package

Spain will approve $56.4 billion (50 billion euros) as part of a new set of measures, which includes setting up a fund to boost companies' solvency, in an attempt to revive the coronavirus-hit economy, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.

The announcement was part of other proposals such as tax reform partly focused on raising taxes on larger companies rather than smaller ones.

Sanchez said in an interview with La Sexta that the new measures were "linked to (boosting) solvency and investment."

India's total cases top 600,000

The number of confirmed infections in India has topped 600,000, with health authorities reporting 19,148 new cases in the past 24 hours.

India’s virus tally stood at 604,641 infections, with 100,000 of those infections reported in the past four days.

India’s health ministry said the death toll from the virus was now 17,834 people.

The worst-hit three states, including those home to the cities of Mumbai and New Delhi, account for more than 60 percent of the country’s cases.

South Korea local cases see two-week high

South Korea reported a two-week record in local cases, local media reported.

Health officials said the country reported 50 new cases, including 44 local infections, according to the Seoul-based Yonhap news agency.

New cases were reported in clusters outside the capital.

The country has reported 12,904 cases so far, along with 282 deaths.

Russia marks week of less than 7,000 cases

Less than 7,000 new cases were reported in Russia for the seventh consecutive day.

A total of 6,760 infections were confirmed over the past 24 hours, bringing the overall count to 661,165, the country's emergency task force said in its daily report.

The death toll went up by 147 to reach 9,683, while recoveries climbed to 428,978 as 6,047 more patients were discharged from hospitals.

Indonesia has 1,624 cases

Indonesia reported 1,624 infections in its biggest jump in new cases since the epidemic began, health ministry official Achmad Yurianto said.

This brings the total number of infections to 59,394.

The country also reported 53 new deaths, taking cumulative fatalities to 2,987.

Amazon indigenous leader dies of virus in Peru

An indigenous leader who fought for the land rights of Amazonian communities in Peru died on Wednesday from Covid-19, his family said.

Santiago Manuin, 63, was transferred to a hospital in the capital Lima from the Amazon region where he lived after he developed symptoms of the respiratory illness.

Indigenous people across Latin America have been decimated by the new disease, due to weak immune systems and centuries of state neglect.

US sees record 52,000 new cases in 24 hours

The US notched more than 52,000 new Covid-19 cases during the past 24 hours, a tally by Johns Hopkins University showed, a new one-day record as infections surge around the country.

The Baltimore-based university's tracker showed 52,898 more cases as of 0030GMT Thursday, bringing the total number of cases since the pandemic reached the United States to 2,682,270.

The university also recorded a further 706 fatalities, bringing the total death toll to 128,028.

New daily case numbers have hovered around 40,000 in recent days, with Johns Hopkins recording 42,528 new infections one day earlier.

Hospitalisations are also increasing in several cities, including Houston, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona.

China reports three new cases

China reported three new coronavirus cases in the mainland for July 1, compared with three cases a day earlier, the health authority said.

Two of the new infections were imported cases, the National Health Commission said in a statement, while the capital city, Beijing, reported one new case. There were no new deaths.

China also reported two new asymptomatic patients, down from three a day earlier.

As of July 1, mainland China had a total of 83,537 confirmed coronavirus cases, it said. China's death toll from the coronavirus remained at 4,634.

New Zealand's health minister resigns after Covid-19 criticism

New Zealand's embattled health minister resigned after security slip-ups at quarantine facilities where the coronavirus was detected just days after officials declared it had been eliminated from the country.

David Clark was also under fire for personally breaching strict lockdown rules twice earlier in the year, by taking his family on a beach trip and driving to a mountain biking track.

"It has become increasingly clear to me that my continuation in the role is distracting from the government's overall response to Covid-19 and the global pandemic," Clark said at a news conference in Wellington.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who had earlier refused calls to sack Clark, citing his critical role in the country's response to the pandemic, said she agreed with his decision.

Mexico's death toll hits 28,510, exceeding Spain 

Mexico's health ministry reported 5,681 new cases of coronavirus infection and 741 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 231,770 cases and 28,510 deaths.

With the additional deaths, Mexico's coronavirus toll exceeded Spain's total number of fatalities from the virus, which was 28,363.

Brazil surpasses 60,000 coronavirus deaths

Brazil topped 60,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus after recording more than 1,000 fatalities over the last 24 hours, the health ministry said.

The South American country has suffered the largest number of daily deaths globally for the last week and is the second-worst affected nation in the world for both cases and fatalities after the United States.

Brazil is showing no signs of reducing either its number of daily cases or deaths.

With more than 46,000 new cases, the country of 212 million now has 1.44 million people infected, although analysts believe the true figure is much higher.

The largest number of deaths have been in the most populous state, Sao Paulo, with 14,700, followed by Rio de Janeiro, with more than 10,000.

Rio's death rate of 584 per million inhabitants is more than twice the national average of 284.

Australia sets up suburban checkpoints to hotspots

Australian police set up suburban checkpoints in new coronavirus hotspots in Melbourne, as authorities struggled to contain new outbreaks in the country's second-largest city, even as travel restrictions eased elsewhere.

Images published by the Australian Broadcasting Corp on Thursday showed police flagging down cars in suburban streets after 36 suburbs in Melbourne in Victoria state went into lockdown following a spike in new infections there.

Australia has fared better than many countries in the pandemic, with around 8,000 cases, 104 deaths and fewer than 400 active cases.

However, the recent jump in Victoria has stoked fears of a second wave of Covid-19, echoing concerns expressed in other countries.

Brazil postpones local elections until November

Brazil's lower house of Congress approved on Wednesday a constitutional amendment to postpone municipal elections to November from October due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The text, which was approved in two rounds by lawmakers, defers the election dates to November 15 and November 29 from October 4 and October 25.

The amendment, previously approved by Senators on June 23, also allows states and cities to reconsider these dates if sanitary conditions hamper voting.

"We are convinced that changing the 2020 electoral calendar is a necessary measure in the current context of the public health emergency that is being imposed and that the proposed new deadlines and dates are adequate and honour the democratic and republican principles," said lawmaker and rapporteur of the amendment, Jhonatan de Jesus.