Blogroll

France's daily death toll from the novel coronavirus fell in the past 24 hours and admissions into intensive care also slowed, the health ministry said on Sunday, thanking citizens for largely respecting a lockdown to halt the spread of the virus.

Some 1,000 African migrants were placed under mandatory quarantine on Sunday after an outbreak of COVID-19 and their camp at Hal Far in the south of Malta was surrounded by police and army trucks to ensure compliance.

The United Arab Emirates will reinforce its stockpile of strategic goods and waive residency visa fines for the rest of the year in response to the coronavirus outbreak, its vice president said on Sunday.

British postman Glen Walton has delivered letters and parcels dressed as a robber, a wrestler, a princess and Pokemon character Pikachu to cheer up residents stuck in their houses while social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.

Britain will be forced to impose more restrictions on outdoor exercise if people flout lockdown rules designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the health minister said on Sunday.

Norway will send a team of medical and logistical staff to Italy's Lombardy region to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oslo government said on Sunday.

Millions of Indians switched off their lights and came out onto their balconies and doorsteps with lamps, candles and flashlights on Sunday, responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to "challenge the darkness" of the coronavirus crisis.

The United States enters one of the most critical weeks so far in the coronavirus crisis with the death toll exploding in New York, Michigan and Louisiana and some governors calling for a national stay-at-home order.

Italy reported its lowest daily COVID-19 death toll for more than two weeks on Sunday as authorities began to look ahead to a second phase of the battle against the new coronavirus once the lockdown imposed almost a month ago is eventually eased.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday he believed there needed to be a mass rollout of rapid testing in order to achieve a "return to normalcy" after the peak of the novel coronavirus crisis passes in the United States in the coming weeks and months.

Ecuador's government has begun storing the bodies of victims of the coronavirus in giant refrigerated containers as hundreds of deaths in the city of Guayaquil, the center of the country's outbreak, have already filled morgues and hospitals.

From Europe to South America, U.S. allies are complaining about the superpower's "Wild West" tactics in outbidding or blocking shipments to buyers who have already signed deals for vital medical supplies.

Australia reported a sustained fall in new coronavirus infections and conducted the biggest peacetime maritime operation on Sydney Harbour on Saturday, refuelling foreign cruise ships before expelling them from local waters.

South Korea said on Saturday it will extend its intensive social distancing campaign scheduled to end on Monday by two weeks in a bid to curb the rate of coronavirus infections to around 50 a day.

In mid-March, President Donald Trump personally pressed federal health officials to make malaria drugs available to treat the novel coronavirus, though they had been untested for COVID-19, two sources told Reuters.

President Donald Trump on Saturday doubled down on his support for a drug that is still being tested to treat the coronavirus, saying he might take the medicine himself and encouraging others with doctor approval to do the same.

President Donald Trump told Americans to brace for a big spike in coronavirus fatalities in the coming days, as the country faces what he called the toughest two weeks of the pandemic.

Britain will have to impose further restrictions on outdoor exercise if people flout lockdown rules designed to curb transmission of the coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Sunday.

Some 143 more cases of the novel coronavirus have been reported in Tokyo, the city's governor said on Sunday, with the highest daily jump bringing the number of cases in the Japanese capital to more than 1,000.

Indonesia has ordered its citizens to wear cloth face masks when going outside as the numbers of coronavirus infections rise to 2,273 on Sunday, Health Ministry official Achmad Yurianto said.