Blogroll

Moscow has begun investigating the safety of a Russian-made medical ventilator, some of which have been sent to the United States though not used, after six people died in hospital fires reported to involve two such machines.

Mexico's health ministry confirmed 1,997 new cases of coronavirus infections on Tuesday, along with 353 additional deaths, the most deadly day since the pandemic began.

China reported seven new confirmed coronavirus cases in mainland on May 12, up from one a day earlier, the country's health authority said on Wednesday.

Ventilators sent by Russia to the United States of the same model that reportedly caused two deadly fires in Russian hospitals were never used in the United States, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency said on Tuesday.

A newly revised coronavirus mortality model predicts more than 147,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 by early August, up nearly 10,000 from the last projection, as restrictions for curbing the pandemic are relaxed, researchers said on Tuesday.

The reproduction rate for the coronavirus pandemic in Germany fell below the critical threshold of 1 to an estimated 0.94 on Tuesday after a 1.07 reading on Monday, the Robert Koch Institute for public health and disease control said.

Germany must help its European Union neighbours revive their economies after the coronavirus crisis, Chancellor Angela Merkel told a meeting of lawmakers from her conservative bloc on Tuesday, according to several participants.

Colombia's commerce regulator said on Tuesday it would look into whether Chinese-owned social media app TikTok complies with laws on the collection and treatment of children's and adolescents' personal data.

Facebook Inc on Tuesday reported a sharp increase in the number of posts it removed for promoting violence and hate speech across its apps, which it attributed to technology improvements for automatically identifying text and images.

Brazil has processed 337,595 tests for the novel coronavirus in official labs, a health ministry official said on Tuesday, up from around 181,000 tests on April 22, when the government previously reported testing numbers.

Brazil's confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 177,589 on Tuesday, according to the health ministry, surpassing Germany's 170,508 confirmed cases of the disease.

Australia's Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said he had tested negative for the new coronavirus after breaking into a sustained coughing bout while giving a speech to parliament on Tuesday about plans for an economic recovery from the pandemic.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday reported 1,342,594 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 18,106 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,064 to 80,820.

Congo President Felix Tshisekedi has temporarily replaced his chief of staff Vital Kamerhe who is charged with stealing public funds, the president's spokesman said on Tuesday.

U.S. online grocery delivery company Instacart is in discussions to raise several hundred million dollars from existing and new investors, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing two people with knowledge of the situation.

Twitter Inc on Tuesday became the first major tech company to allow employees who can work remotely to do so indefinitely, as the coronavirus outbreak forces unprecedented changes in work culture across the world.

France's death toll from the coronavirus rose by 348 to 26,991 on Tuesday, overtaking Spain to become the country with the world's fourth-highest number of fatalities after the United States, Britain and Italy.

Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy climbed by 172 on Tuesday, against 179 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, but the daily tally of new cases doubled to 1,402 from 744 on Monday.

Brazilian digital wallet PicPay hit 20 million clients in early May, reaching a goal previously expected for December as social isolation measures to combat the coronavirus accelerates the search for digital financial services, an executive said on Tuesday.

Cuba began mass testing for the new coronavirus this week even as it appeared to have contained infections, and residents struggled to move around amid a partial shutdown in search of scarce basic goods.