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Italy plans to use a smartphone app developed by tech start-up Bending Spoons to track people who test positive for the new coronavirus as part of efforts to lift its nationwide lockdown.

Australians were strongly urged to sign up for a controversial mobile phone app that will track their movements as officials warned on Friday that public life could be constrained for another year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

China has confirmed a new case of African swine fever in the eastern province of Jiangsu, the agriculture ministry said on Friday.

A coronavirus contact tracing app will be ready for Germans to download and use on their smartphones in three to four weeks, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Friday.

Amazon does not know when its warehouses in France might reopen but hopes it can be soon, the head of its French business said on Friday.

The Chinese city of Wuhan hiked its death toll from the novel coronavirus by 50% on Friday bringing the total to 3,869, state-run TV reported, confirming residents' worst fears amid rising international doubts about Beijing's handling of the outbreak.

A senior cybersecurity official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Thursday that foreign government hackers have broken into companies conducting research into treatments for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus.

Reported cases of the coronavirus crossed 2.14 million globally and 143,744 people have died, according to a Reuters tally as of 0200 GMT on Friday.

Swiss drugmaker Roche aims by next month to offer blood tests to identify those who had been infected with the coronavirus, potentially helping inform locked-down nations of who might have some immunity and be able to resume work or contact with the public.

Germany's confirmed coronavirus cases have risen by 3,380 to 133,830, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Friday, marking a third straight day of new infections accelerating.

Thailand on Friday reported 28 new coronavirus cases and one more death, an 85-year-old woman who had other health complications.

Gilead Sciences Inc's shares surged 16% in after hours trading on Thursday following a media report detailing encouraging partial data from trials of the U.S. company's experimental drug remdesivir in severe COVID-19 patients.

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) circulated on Thursday a draft order asking FCC members to approve Ligado Networks' low-power nationwide 5G network despite objections from the Defense Department and major U.S. airlines.

China's Wuhan city, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, said on Friday it had revised up its total coronavirus death toll by 1,290, according to state-run CCTV.

New Zealand justified its tough lockdown policies despite a significant drop in the number of coronavirus cases on Friday, with officials citing two new deaths as evidence of the risk from lifting social restrictions too soon.

Mainland China reported on Friday that new confirmed cases of the coronavirus fell to a two-week low, as infections involving travellers arriving from abroad sharply fell.

Honduran Health Minister Alba Consuelo Flores said on Thursday that a Cuban medical brigade would join local medics in the fight against the novel coronavirus as it spreads in the poor Central American country.

Moderna Inc said on Thursday that it received a $483 million contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to accelerate the development of its vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirus.

Verizon Communications Inc on Thursday agreed to buy BlueJeans Network Inc, a rival of Zoom Video Communications Inc, for less than $500 million as it looks to tap into the new-found popularity of video-conferencing apps.

Facebook Inc said on Thursday it would start notifying users who had engaged with false posts about COVID-19 which could cause physical harm, such as drinking bleach to cure the virus, and connect them to accurate information.