Coronavirus Live News: US death toll exceeds 170,000, New Zealand postpones elections | World news

India’s coronavirus death toll hit 50,000 on Monday, with more than 900 new deaths reported in 24 hours, health ministry data showed.

The country conquered Britain last week with the fourth-highest number of deaths in the world, behind the United States, Brazil and Mexico, and has recorded 2.6 million infections.

India’s death toll from the pandemic now stands at 50,921, an increase from 941 from the previous day, according to the Ministry of Health’s website. The world’s most populous country in the world, India has nearly 2.6m infections, making it the third least affected nation behind the US (5.4m) and Brazil (3.3m).

Experts say India needs to step up testing to get the virus under control as it spreads to rural and regional areas where health care systems are particularly fragile or not easily accessible.

In case you missed this earlier in the blog, you can read our story about fears about the potential impact of the virus here in rural India.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said trials and tests on three potential candidates for vaccines were being conducted in India and that his government was preparing and producing enormous numbers of doses if one was found to be viable.

“Once we get a green signal from our scientists, we will start mass production of the vaccine. We have made all the preparations, “Modi said in a speech before Independence Day on Saturday.

“We have created a scheme to increase the production of faxes and make them available to every person in the shortest possible time.”

The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Germany increased by 561 to 224,014, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Monday.

The reported death toll increased by one to 9,232, as evidenced by the tally.

There are renewed fears for the health of Japan’s economy, after suffering its biggest contraction on record in the second quarter, as the coronavirus pandemic closed businesses and disrupted consumer disposition.

Japanese GDP shrank to a record 7.8% in the quarter-April quarter – the worst contraction in the nation’s modern history – and to an annual rate of 27.8%, adding to pressure on policymakers to prevent that the world’s third largest economy is sinking in a deep and prolonged recession.

It was the third straight quarter of contraction and a larger decline than a median market forecast for a 27.2% decline.

Private consumption, which accounts for more than half of Japan’s economy, fell 8.2% year-on-year, exceeding analysts’ forecast of a 7.1% decline. Exports fell dramatically, at an annual rate of 56%.

Large parts of the economy have reopened since the state of emergency was lifted in late May, but analysts said an expected rebound could be at the mercy of the pandemic later this year.

“We expect the economy to mark bilingual growth in July-September, but it will only be a rebound of loss in April-June and the level is likely to be strong,” said Saisuke Sakai, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute.

“There is a chance that economic activity will stagnate again if large nations take lockdown measures again and Japan issues a state of emergency again.”

Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said the government would take “flexible and timely” measures to support the economy.

“We hope to do our utmost to push Japan’s economy, which was likely to crash in April and May, back to a recovery path driven by domestic demand,” he told reporters after the GDP data was released.

Coronavirus deaths in the United States have been estimated at 170,000, according to Johns Hopkins’ university tracker. Fallen now stand at 5.4m, with deaths at 170.052.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Protection, the rolling average of 7 days for new cases is currently 52,182.

Meanwhile, White House adviser and son-in-law of President Jared Kushner has said he will “absolutely” send his children back to school if classes reopen, despite widespread concerns that educating children, faculties and their families is at stake brings out Covid-19.

You can read our full story about it below:

The Mexican Ministry of Health on Sunday reported 4,448 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections and 214 additional deaths, bringing the total to 522,162 cases and 56,757 deaths in the country.

The government has said the true number of infected people is likely to be higher than the confirmed cases.

China has not reported any new local coronavirus cases in the western region of Xinjiang according to national data, marking for the first time that the area’s cases have been zero since mid-July.

Nationally, there were 22 new coronavirus cases on the mainland before August 16, compared to 19 cases a day earlier, the health authority said.

All new infections were cases imported, the National Health Commission said in a statement. There were no new deaths.

China also reported 37 new asymptomatic patients, compared with 16 a day earlier.

Gladys Berejiklian has also apologized for mistakes made on the cruise ship Ruby Princess, which docked in Sydney in March. Passengers were allowed to walk independently, despite several exhibiting flu-like symptoms.

Gladys Berejiklian said:

Can I now unreservedly apologize to anyone who suffers as a result of the mistakes outlined in the report made by individuals in the health department or the health agency, and I extend that apology unreservedly.

Especially to the 62 people who got the virus in second or tertiary way.

Those 62 people who were not on the ship but somehow contracted the virus as a result of that dismissal.

And I want to say that I can not imagine what it would be like to have a love or to be someone who continues to suffer and experience trauma as a result and I want to ask that unconditionally – to anyone who continues to suffer or has suffered unimaginable loss due to mistakes made within – within the health authorities.

You can follow all of our Australian live coverage on our Australian blog below.

In the neighboring Australian state New South Wales – the most popular in the country – the Prime Minister, Gladys Berejiklian spoke about her fears about containing communication transmission:

While the case numbers are declining nicely, my fear remains the same, if not a little higher, because we had undetected or unconfirmed cases every week.

Health works overnight 24/7 to find the genomic links or find those links between the cases that have no known source and existing clusters.

I mean, potentially the virus continues to spread in certain parts of south-west and west Sydney and that’s a big concern, because if you look back to Melbourne, Melbourne was not reduced because of the number of cases they had, they did not -discovered community transmission that then unknowingly came to a stage where it did – there were a number of different clusters and we absolutely do not want this to happen here in New South Wales.

New South Wales has had much smaller numbers of communication transmissions, with cases below 10 over each of the past four days.

Just a quick update of the two other press conferences that have taken place – both in Australia:

First to Victoria, where we learned more details about the 25 Victorians who died in the last 24 hours, on Australia’s deadliest day:

• One man in his 60s
• Four women and three men in their 70s
• Six women and four men in their 80s
• Four women and three men in their 90s.

Twenty of those 25 deaths have been linked to outbreaks of elderly care.

There are 657 Victorians in the hospital – 44 of those are receiving intensive care and 32 of those 44 are on a ventilator.

Bloomfield praises those New Zealanders who have come forward to test:

“It was very intense to see the number of people coming forward to test,” Bloomfield says.