Health

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Wednesday he will make an announcement next week about a plan to broadly reopen the state's economy during the first week of May after early steps taken so far.

Switzerland will not impose a general obligation on citizens to wear protective masks as the country starts relaxing its coronavirus restrictions next week, the government said on Wednesday.

Indonesia reported 283 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, taking the total number of cases to 7,418, a health ministry official said.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Netherlands rose by 708 to 34,842, health authorities said on Wednesday, with 138 new deaths.

Laboratory and drug development services provider LabCorp said on Wednesday it would expand the availability of its antibody tests for the new coronavirus to more hospitals and healthcare organizations starting next week.

A northeastern city of 10 million people, grappling with what is now China's biggest coronavirus outbreak, further restricted inbound traffic on Wednesday to contain the spread of the highly contagious disease.

The novel coronavirus outbreak has caused as many as 41,000 deaths in the United Kingdom, according to a Financial Times analysis of statistics office data.

U.S. coronavirus deaths topped 45,000 on Tuesday doubling in a little over a week and rising by a near-record amount in a single day, according to a Reuters tally.

Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Democratic Governor Tony Evers, challenging his stay-at-home order to contain the coronavirus outbreak as states' decisions on when to re-open their economies have become increasingly political.

Mainland China reported on Wednesday 30 new coronavirus cases, 23 of which were so-called imported cases involving travellers from overseas, up from 11 a day earlier.

Demand for plant-based protein foods is surging in Asia, suppliers say, as suspicion over possible links between wild animal meat and the new coronavirus drives some consumers, particularly in Hong Kong and mainland China, to rethink diets.

U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to have the federal government help procure chemical reagents and other supplies needed for New York to double its testing capacity for the novel coronavirus, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Tuesday.

Mexico registered a jump of more than 700 confirmed coronavirus cases on Tuesday, to reach a total of 9,501 cases, health ministry officials told reporters at a regular briefing.

A second wave of the coronavirus is expected to hit the United States next winter and could strike much harder than the first because it would likely arrive at the start of influenza season, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Tuesday.

Quest Diagnostics Inc said on Tuesday it has started testing using blood samples to detect COVID-19 antibodies and expects to ramp up capacity over the coming weeks as public health experts push for wider testing in the United States.

Susan Morrison lost her 39-year-old stepbrother, Lawrence Jones, from coronavirus complications on April 8. A day later, her 83-year-old father, Feaster Dorsey, also became a COVID-19 victim.

An old malaria drug touted by U.S. President Donald Trump as a "game changer" in the fight against the coronavirus provided no benefit and potentially higher risk of death for patients at U.S. veterans hospitals, according to an analysis that has been submitted for expert review.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday reported 776,093 cases of the novel coronavirus, an increase of 29,468 cases from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 2,675 to 41,758.

Spain will allow children to go outside for walks from next weekend in a loosening of the country's strict coronavirus lockdown, Health Minister Salvador Illa said late on Tuesday, amid mounting criticism that the government's restrictions unfairly penalise the very young.

The top official in Britain's foreign ministry said on Tuesday he had been mistaken when he told a committee of lawmakers the government had made a political decision not to participate in a European scheme to buy ventilators to fight the coronavirus.