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The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday warned of the risks of returning to lockdown if countries emerging from pandemic restrictions do not manage transitions "extremely carefully and in a phased approach".

Shopify Inc said more people were shopping online as the COVID-19 crisis kept them at home, helping the Canadian e-commerce company post a surprise adjusted profit for the first quarter and sending shares to a record high.

Spain has extended the state of emergency imposed to combat the coronavirus pandemic for two more weeks from Sunday, allowing the government to control people's movements as it gradually relaxes a national lockdown.

The number of people who have died from COVID-19 in Turkey has risen by 64 in the last 24 hours to 3,584, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Wednesday.

The days of English football's once notorious drinking culture are long gone and few professionals would now list the once obligatory 'steak and chips' as their favourite meal but things are moving to a different level entirely when it comes to what players used to call 'looking after yourself'.

Britain's COVID-19 death toll has risen by 649 to 30,076, according to figures announced on Wednesday by government minister Robert Jenrick.

Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy climbed by 369 on Wednesday, against just 236 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the daily tally of new infections also rose, increasing by 1,444 against 1,075 on Tuesday.

Bristol Myers Squibb Co said on Wednesday the U.S. FDA has decided to extend the approval timeline for the drugmaker's experimental blood cancer therapy that was acquired as part of the $74 billion buyout of Celgene.

The total number of people killed by the coronavirus in Canada rose by about 5% to 4,111 on Wednesday from a day earlier, official data posted by the public health agency showed.

Turkey has entered a new phase in the battle against coronavirus in which it aims to eliminate the disease, reopen businesses and set new social behaviour guidelines to prevent any resurgence of the outbreak, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Wednesday.

Singapore's health ministry on Wednesday confirmed 788 new coronavirus cases, taking the city-state's tally to 20,198.

Zoom Video Communications Inc on Wednesday named former White House National Security Adviser HR McMaster to its board and hired the policy chief of one of the tech world's big lobby groups to drive governmental relations as it poured more money into improving its image on security.

A llama called Winter could prove useful in the hunt for a treatment for COVID-19, according to U.S. and Belgian scientists who have identified a tiny particle that appears to block the new coronavirus.

Yemen on Wednesday reported the first three cases of the novel coronavirus in the southern province of Lahaj, one of whom has died, and another infection in the southern port of Aden.

The death toll from the new coronavirus outbreak in Iran rose by 78 in the past 24 hours to 6,418 and the total number of infections to 101,650, the Health Ministry said in a tweet on Wednesday.

At least 90,000 health-care workers worldwide are believed to have been infected with COVID-19, and possibly twice that, amid reports of continuing shortages of protective equipment, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) said on Wednesday.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday considered a bid by Donald Trump's administration to implement rules allowing employers to obtain religious exemptions from an Obamacare requirement that health insurance that they provide to employees covers women's birth control.

In April, an elderly resident living in Seine-Saint-Denis, France's poorest commune on the edge of Paris, went to hospital worried they had COVID-19. The test returned negative and the pensioner was sent home. Ten days later they were found dead.

A genetic analysis of samples from more than 7,500 people infected with COVID-19 suggests the new coronavirus spread quickly around the world late last year and is adapting to its human hosts, scientists said on Wednesday.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez looks set to secure enough parliamentary votes on Wednesday to extend a state of emergency for two more weeks as the country relaxes a lockdown imposed to control one of the world's worst coronavirus outbreaks.