Blogroll

New coronavirus infections in Poland may start to fall within a week, Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski said on Tuesday.

Britain must step up its testing and tracking to help tackle the coronavirus crisis, lawmakers said on Tuesday, criticising the government for dropping a programme to check for COVID-19 in March and not moving fast enough to build it up.

The Czech Republic reported its biggest daily rise in new coronavirus cases in four weeks, climbing by 111 to an overall total to 8,594 as of Tuesday morning.

Indonesia reported on Tuesday 486 new coronavirus infections, taking the total in the Southeast Asian country to 18,496, the country's COVID-19 task force reported on its official website.

Malaysian health authorities on Tuesday reported 37 new coronavirus cases, raising the cumulative total to 6,978 cases.

The Philippine health ministry on Tuesday reported six new coronavirus deaths and 224 more infections, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 12,942.

Japan may lift its state of emergency in more regions this week as new coronavirus infections drop, the Asahi newspaper said on Tuesday, moving to resume sorely needed activity in the world's third-largest economy, battered by containment measures.

Swiss telecoms operator Sunrise Communications Group and French billionaire Xavier Niel's Salt Mobile on Tuesday pledged to invest up to 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.09 billion) in a broadband partnership aimed at reaching 1.5 million homes by 2027.

A consortium of British aerospace, automotive and medical companies said they were ramping up ventilator production to make sure there were enough available should there be a second spike in the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Novartis won European approval for its gene therapy Zolgensma for the hereditary disease spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), the Swiss drugmaker said on Tuesday, adding it is in talks over price with countries in hopes of a quick launch.

Russia said on Tuesday that 9,263 new cases of the novel coronavirus had been reported in the last 24 hours, pushing its nationwide tally to 299,941.

Worldwide electric car registrations are set to fall 18% this year, but those of combustion engine cars are set to drop even faster, analysts BloombergNEF (BNEF) said on Tuesday, as the automotive sector is hammered by the coronavirus crisis.

Singapore's health ministry said on Tuesday it confirmed 451 more coronavirus cases, taking the city-state's tally of infections to 28,794.

The number of new coronavirus cases in the Czech Republic showed its biggest daily rise in four weeks and climbed above 100 for the first time this month, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

Japan's Sharp Corp, an Apple Inc supplier, reported a 37% decline in annual operating profit and refrained from releasing an earnings outlook for the current year because of uncertainty over the novel coronavirus impact.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany rose by 513 to 175,210, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Tuesday, with new infections accelerating after decelerating the previous four days.

The United States will announce on Tuesday that it has signed a $354 million contract with a company to make generic medicines and pharmaceutical ingredients in the country needed to treat COVID-19, the New York Times reported late on Monday.

Swiss drugmaker Novartis said on Tuesday it was awarded conditional European approval for its gene therapy Zolgensma for treating children with the hereditary disease spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).

(This May 18 story, corrects to say France has fourth highest number of coronavirus deaths, not confirmed cases, in paragraph 2)

Sony Corp will turn its financial arm, Sony Financial Holdings Inc , into a wholly owned unit through a tender offer worth about 400 billion yen ($3.72 billion), the Nikkei business daily reported on Tuesday.