Last updated: 12/06/2020 08:29
Europe could face a surge of COVID-19 infections caused by mass protests over the last few days against racism after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in the United States, according to politicians, European Union officials and experts.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
* More than 7.53 million people have been reported infected with the novel coronavirus around the world and 420,808 have died, a Reuters tally showed as of 0504 GMT on Friday.
* For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread, click here.
EUROPE
* Total cases in Germany increased by 258 to 185,674 and the death toll by eight to 8,763, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed.
* England’s COVID-19 Trace and Track programme is functioning effectively nationwide, although it can still be improved, programme leader Dido Harding said after the first numbers of people tested and traced were published.
AMERICAS
* About half a dozen states including Texas and Arizona are grappling with a rising number of coronavirus patients filling hospital beds, fanning concerns that the reopening of the U.S. economy may spark a second wave of infections.
* From apple packing houses in Washington state to farm workers in Florida and a California county known as “the world’s salad bowl,” outbreaks of the coronavirus are emerging at U.S. fruit and vegetable farms and packing plants.
* Shoppers in Brazil, which surpassed a total count of 800,000 on Thursday, lined up for hours and crowded into malls in the country’s two largest cities after they reopened.
* Mexico reported 4,790 new infections and 587 additional fatalities on Thursday.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* South Korea will extend its prevention and sanitation guidelines until daily new infections drop to single digits, the health minister said, failing which he warned of a return to tough social distancing measures.
* India reported a total of 297,535 cases, surpassing the United Kingdom to become the fourth worst affected country in the world.
* Australia has effectively eliminated COVID-19 in some parts of the country, its chief medical officer has said.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* The pandemic is accelerating in Africa, spreading to the hinterland from capital cities where it arrived with travellers, the World Health Organization said.
* Lebanese cut roadways with burning tyres and rubbish bins across Beirut and other cities in renewed protests sparked by a rapid fall in the pound currency and mounting economic hardship.
* Tanzania has begun negotiations with creditors over a G20 nations initiative over debt relief, the finance minister said.
* Egypt will open its main seaside resorts for international flights and foreign tourists from July 1, the cabinet said.
ECONOMIC FALLOUT
* Asian shares fell sharply on Friday after Wall Street and oil tumbled over growing concerns that a resurgence of coronavirus infections could stunt the pace of recovery in economies reopening from lockdowns.
* The economic fallout from the pandemic could plunge an extra 395 million people into extreme poverty and swell the total number of those living on less than $1.90 a day worldwide to more than 1 billion, according to a report.
(Reuters)
Pictured: A demonstrator protests against police brutality and racial inequality in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Manhattan, New York, U.S., June 11, 2020. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
