#0425 – COVID-19 Live Updates: Hospital Death Toll in England Surges to 19,746

ATHENS (Sputnik) – Greece has registered 10 new cases of the coronavirus disease over the past 24 hours that brought the total number of cases to 2,576, Sotiris Tsiodras, a spokesman for the Greek Health Ministry, said at a briefing on Wednesday.

Tsiodras said that one person died from the disease over the last day taking the overall death toll to 139 people.

According to the spokesman, 41 people diagnosed with COVID-19 are currently in intensive care units, while 71 patients were transferred from intensive care to regular wards as their condition improved.

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has stated that the country’s testing capacity is over 73,000 a day.

CAIRO (Sputnik) – Tunisia plans to gradually restart crucial sectors of the economy starting next week, the minister in charge of major projects was cited as saying by state media on Wednesday.

Lobna Jeribi said the economy will be relaunched in three phases from 4 May until 14 July, according to the TAP news agency.

Smaller businesses will be allowed to reopen in the first phase from 4-24 May. Retail stores selling clothes and shoes, and larger businesses will reopen starting 11 May.

Cultural, sports and tourist venues, cafes, restaurants and markets will partially reopen from 24 May to 4 June and reach their full capacity from 5 June to 14 July.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The number of confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the US armed forces, including family members, civilian staff and contractors, has increased by 106 over the past day, the Department of Defence said on Thursday.

According to the Defence Department’s updated COVID-19 fact sheet, the total number of cases now 6,754 as compared to 6,648 on Tuesday.

The number of people hospitalized stands at 283, while 2,176 have recovered.

TORONTO (Sputnik) – The number of Canadians who have contracted the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) ticked up 50,373, updated figures from Canada’s Public Health Agency revealed Wednesday.

The COVID-19-related death toll rose to 2,904, the data showed.

The province of Quebec remains the epicentre of the outbreak in Canada, accounting for more than half of all confirmed cases – 25,757 – and 1,682 deaths. Nevertheless, the province announced on Tuesday that it intends to begin reopening the economy on May 4.

GENEVA (Sputnik) – Switzerland has prohibited all large-scale events of more than 1,000 people until the end of August amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Council said Wednesday.

“Large-scale events involving more than 1,000 people will remain banned until the end of August. By doing so, [the council] aims to create certainty for those planning such events”, it said.

The federal government will assess the situation before the summer holiday and decide on 27 May whether smaller events with fewer than 1,000 participants will be allowed.

HELSINKI (Sputnik) – Finland registered 166 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, and the total number of people infected with COVID-19 climbed to 4,906 in the Scandinavian country, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) said on Wednesday.

“As of 29 April, Finland has 4,906 laboratory-confirmed cases of the new coronavirus”, THL said.

The health authorities also confirmed seven coronavirus-related fatalities over the given period, and the overall death toll reached 206.

On Tuesday, the number of COVID-19 carriers in Finland was 4,740.

STOCKHOLM (Sputnik) – The number of people infected with the coronavirus in Sweden has reached 20,302, Chief Public Health Official Anders Tegnell said at a briefing on Wednesday.

The number of coronavirus-related deaths has increased by 107 over the past day and reached 2,462, Tegnel said.

He warned that the true number of fatalities could turn to be much higher than that.

According to the official, the statistical data on the count of cases and fatalities in the country shows that the Swedish health authorities “still keep the situation under control”.

India’s federal Home Ministry issues guidelines for movement of stranded people, including migrant labourers in the country. The guidelines issued on Wednesday stipulates all persons are to be medically screened at the source and destination and kept in home or institutional quarantine on arrival as per guidelines issued by the federal Health Ministry.

According to the health service, 445 people succumbed to the disease in English hospitals over the past 24 hours.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The COVID-19 death toll on the African continent has surpassed 1,500 after the regional office of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday announced 52 new deaths over the preceding 24 hours.

According to the organisation, a total of 34,610 cases of the disease have been confirmed since the start of the outbreak, resulting in 1,517 deaths. On Tuesday, the case total stood at 33,085 with 1,465 deaths.

Egypt and South Africa have been the two epicentres of COVID-19 on the continent, with 5,042 and 4,996 cases, respectively. A total of 4,246 cases of the disease have been confirmed in Morocco, and 3,649 cases in Algeria.

The African countries with the highest COVID-19 death toll are Algeria with 437 deaths and Egypt with 359 deaths so far.

MOSCOW, April 29 (Sputnik) – Doctors at Stanford Children’s Hospital in the United States have treated a child with a rare inflammatory syndrome that has been linked to COVID-19, CNN reported on Wednesday.

According to the broadcaster, Stanford doctors initially admitted a six-month-old girl with a viral infection and she was later diagnosed with COVID-19. A chest x-ray showed the symptoms of Kawasaki disease, and after treatment, the child was discharged two weeks later.

“Kawasaki disease itself is often preceded by a respiratory or gastrointestinal illness”, Brad Segal, a doctor in the child neurology department at Stanford Children’s Hospital, told the broadcaster, adding that it was too early to tell if the COVID-19 outbreak will lead to a spike in Kawasaki disease infections.

Other media reports suggest that three cases of the inflammatory syndrome have also been discovered among children in the state of New York, the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.

Cases of the inflammatory syndrome have reportedly been identified in Italy and Spain, the two European countries that have been most severely impacted by the coronavirus disease outbreak.

“Over the past day, 1,073 new COVID-19 cases have been detected. The total number of those infected has reached 93,657. As many as 73,791 people have recovered”, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said, as aired by the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The Moscow city authorities have decided to begin preparations to set up temporary hospitals comprising a total of 10,000 beds in which COVID-19 patients will be placed for aftercare, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Wednesday.

“We also decided that we would place patients for aftercare in temporary hospitals that are under construction at [the city’s] main clinical institutions. In addition, we have decided on preparatory work for the deployment of temporary hospitals with 10,000 beds”, Sobyanin wrote on the VK social network.

The mayor added that the list of facilities is yet to be finalised and their use would depend on the dynamics of the coronavirus pandemic.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Spain’s COVID-19 death toll has increased by 325 (301 yesterday) to 24,275 over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

The number of COVID-19 cases in the country grew by 2,144 (1,308 yesterday) to 212,917 over the same period.

The number of recoveries is now nearing 109,000 after growing by 6,399 (1,673 yesterday) over the past 24 hours.

As many as 39,230 doctors have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Spain since the beginning of the outbreak.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Over 730,000 tests for the new coronavirus have been run in the Russian capital as of Wednesday, according to the official portal of the Moscow Mayor and Moscow Government.

“To date, more than 730,000 tests for the coronavirus have been carried out in Moscow. In total, almost 5,700 tests for the coronavirus infection are run per 100,000 people. According to this indicator, Moscow has become an absolute leader among metropolitan cities in the world”, the portal said in a statement.

According to the statement, every day more than 25,000 people are being tested for COVID-19 in federal, municipal, and private laboratories. People with symptoms of acute respiratory viral infections as well as patients with pneumonia and those who live with a confirmed COVID-19 carrier, are tested.

So far, Moscow has registered 48,426 cases of the disease, including 4,130 recoveries and 479 fatalities. Among the confirmed cases, 43,817 are active.