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#	Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths
	World	8,570,384	+140,528	455,575
1	USA	2,263,651	+27,924	120,688
2	Brazil	983,359	+23,050	47,869
3	Russia	561,091	+7,790	7,660
4	India	381,091	+13,827	12,604
5	UK	300,469	+1,218	42,288
6	Spain	292,348	+585	27,136
7	Peru	244,388	+3,480	7,461
8	Italy	238,159	+331	34,514
9	Chile	225,103	+4,475	3,841
10	Iran	197,647	+2,596	9,272
11	Germany	190,126	+622	8,946
12	Turkey	184,031	+1,304	4,882
13	Pakistan	160,118	+5,358	3,093
14	Mexico	159,793	+4,930	19,080
15	France	158,641	+467	29,603
16	Saudi Arabia	145,991	+4,757	1,139
17	Bangladesh	102,292	+3,803	1,343
18	Canada	100,220	+367	8,300
19	Qatar	84,441	+1,267	86
20	South Africa	83,890	+3,478	1,737
21	China	83,293	+28	4,634
22	Belgium	60,348	+104	9,683
23	Colombia	60,217	+3,171	1,950
24	Belarus	56,657	+625	331
25	Sweden	56,043	+1,481	5,053
26	Egypt	50,437	+1,218	1,938
27	Netherlands	49,319	+115	6,078
28	Ecuador	49,097	+607	4,087
29	UAE	43,752	+388	298
30	Indonesia	42,762	+1,331	2,339
31	Singapore	41,473	+257	26
32	Portugal	38,089	+417	1,524
33	Kuwait	38,074	+541	308
34	Argentina	37,510	+1,958	948
35	Ukraine	34,063	+829	966
36	Switzerland	31,200	+13	1,956
37	Poland	31,015	+314	1,316
38	Philippines	27,799	+561	1,116
39	Afghanistan	27,532	+658	546
40	Oman	26,818	+739	119
41	Iraq	25,717	+1,463	856
42	Ireland	25,355	+14	1,714
43	Dominican Republic	24,645	+540	635
44	Panama	23,351	+754	475
45	Romania	23,080	+320	1,473
46	Bolivia	20,685	+802	679
47	Bahrain	20,430	+469	55
48	Israel	20,036	+253	303
49	Armenia	18,698	+665	309
50	Nigeria	18,480	+745	475
51	Japan	17,668	+40	935
52	Austria	17,223	+20	688
53	Kazakhstan	15,877	+335	100
54	Moldova	13,106	+374	444
55	Ghana	12,929	+339	66
56	Serbia	12,616	+94	258
57	Denmark	12,344	+50	600
58	S. Korea	12,257	+59	280
59	Algeria	11,385	+117	811
60	Azerbaijan	11,329	+338	139

 

Source：https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

 

 

The outbreak is surging, with clusters on several continents.

 

A Covid burial in Santiago, Chile, this week.Credit...Javier Torres/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The coronavirus caseload is surging globally, driven by outbreaks in Latin America, Africa, South Asia and the United States.

More than 140,000 cases were reported on Tuesday and another 166,000 on Wednesday, two of the three highest tallies since the outbreak began. Seventy-seven nations have seen a growth in new cases over the past two weeks, while only 43 have seen declines.

While Wednesday’s total, the record high, was inflated by a backlog of more than 30,000 mishandled and unreported cases that Chile added to its tally, the rising daily numbers reflect the pandemic’s stubborn grip on the world.

Brazil reported more than 32,000 new cases on Wednesday, the most in the world, and the United States was second, with more than 25,000. The leaders of both nations have been criticized for their handling of the outbreak.

On Thursday, California and Florida reported their highest daily totals of new cases yet. And Texas became the sixth state in the nation to surpass 100,000 cases, according to a New York Times database. Cases there have doubled over the past month.

The virus is also taking off in other parts of the world.

If the outbreak was defined early on by a series of shifting epicenters — including Wuhan, China; Iran; northern Italy; Spain; and New York — it is now defined by its wide and expanding scope. And more risks lie ahead as nations begin to reopen their economies.

In India, which initially placed all 1.3 billion of its citizens under a lockdown — then moved to reopen even with its strained public health system near the breaking point — officials reported a record number of new cases Wednesday. And the virus is now spreading rapidly in nearby Pakistan and Bangladesh as well.

It took Africa nearly 100 days to reach 100,000 cases, the World Health Organization noted, but only 19 days to double that tally. South Africa now averages a thousand more new cases each day than it did two weeks ago.

And some countries where caseloads had appeared to taper — including Israel, Sweden and Costa Rica — are now watching them rise again.

 

 

 

 

Japan lifts a domestic travel ban despite new infections.

 

A domestic arrivals terminal at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in April.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan lifted a virus-related travel ban on Friday that had prohibited residents from moving between prefectures, a sign that the government believes the country has tamed the coronavirus enough to ease domestic travel.

Mr. Abe’s government is also in discussions to ease international travel bans for passengers arriving from Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Vietnam.

In Tokyo, which with close to 5,700 documented infections has the highest concentration of coronavirus cases in the country, Governor Yuriko Koike announced that all businesses could resume normal operations on Friday after about two months of restrictions on nightclubs, karaoke bars, restaurants, pachinko gambling parlors and other establishments.

The announcements came as Tokyo announced 41 new infections on Thursday, of which 19 were deemed close contacts of an infected person. When reported cases spiked earlier this week, Ms. Koike said they were mostly related to an intensive testing campaign in Tokyo’s nightlife district. The government has issued guidelines for nightclubs that include measures such as increasing disinfection and ventilation, mandating face masks and erecting plastic partitions between tables or at bar counters.

In announcing Tokyo’s infection numbers on Thursday, the government did not explain the routes of infection for more than half of the cases.

Japan’s Health Ministry reported 71 new cases for the entire country on Thursday, including three that were detected among passengers arriving at airports. Japan has more than 18,000 infections and 942 deaths as of Friday, according to a New York Times database.

“We need to run the economy strongly by controlling the infection risks with less restrictive measures,” Mr. Abe said on Thursday evening in announcing the easing of domestic travel. He said that officials and citizens need to “take measures that put more emphasis on protecting jobs and life.”

Mr. Abe also announced that the government was introducing a smartphone app on Friday that will allow the health authorities to inform people who have been in close contact with an infected person and encourage them to self-isolate.

In remarks to reporters, Mr. Abe said that studies show a lockdown would not be necessary “when 60 percent of the population has the app that leads to early detection of infection.”

 

 

Britain didn’t want Silicon Valley’s help on a tracing app, but now it does.

 

A customer getting her temperature taken before entering an Apple store in London on Monday.Credit...Tolga Akmen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

For months, British authorities went their own way, pursuing an app they promised would help ease the country out of lockdown, even as criticism grew that it posed privacy risks and would not work well.

On Thursday, they abruptly reversed course.

Now, Britain plans to join other countries and design a new contact-tracing app based on software provided by Apple and Google.

It was an embarrassing turnaround, and just one of a string of pandemic missteps by the government. At one point, the government said the contact-tracing technology would be available to the public in May. Now the aim is to have it ready by winter.

British officials had counted on the app, which is intended to alert anyone who may have come near an infected person, such as on a bus or subway, to help prevent a new wave of infections.

Leaders stuck to a plan of building an app in-house even as other countries changed course. Germany and Italy, which both agreed to use Apple and Google’s technology more than a month ago, debuted contact-tracing apps this week.

British public health officials wanted to avoid using the software provided by Apple and Google because it limits the amount of data that can be centrally collected and analyzed — information they felt was critical in tracking the disease. But the British team struggled to build an app that worked properly without support from the Silicon Valley giants.

Apple and Google, whose operating systems run on nearly every smartphone on the planet, prevented outside apps that did not use their code from taking full advantage of a device’s ability to measure proximity. The companies took this approach in the interests of privacy.

The switch comes as big tech zeroes in on the virus-testing market. As businesses across the United States grapple with how to safely reopen during the pandemic, numerous tech giants and start-ups are pushing out a glut of new virus risk-reduction products.

 

 

A Beijing market linked to new cases was contaminated, a top expert says.

 

Medics tested for the coronavirus on Wednesday near Beijing’s Xinfadi wholesale market.Credit...Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

A top Chinese epidemiologist has said that seafood vendors in a Beijing market linked to at least 183 new coronavirus cases had suffered the most infections and showed symptoms of the virus earlier than those who sold beef and lamb.

Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters on Thursday that low temperatures and high humidity in the seafood and meat areas of Beijing’s Xinfadi wholesale market may have contributed to the spread of the virus.

Dr. Wu compared the circumstances surrounding the latest cluster in Beijing to the initial outbreak in the city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged late last year. Specifically, he said the vendors selling wildlife in the Wuhan market had been grouped together with the seafood stalls, and that the proximity of fish and meat stalls could provide clues into how the virus emerged.

“The findings reminded us of the first outbreak of an unknown pneumonia in Wuhan last year — that happened at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market,” he said. “Why do seafood markets appear to be a possible source of infection?”

Officials have been racing to contain the new outbreak in the Chinese capital, shutting down the city’s schools and enacting strict lockdowns in high-risk neighborhoods. On Thursday, thousands of restaurant workers lined up around the city to get tested for the virus. The health authorities also released new guidelines urging the public to prevent “splash contamination” by not rinsing raw meat or seafood directly under the tap.

Travelers looking to leave Beijing via plane or train are being required to show proof of a negative nucleic acid test taken within seven days before boarding. As a result, demand for tests has surged in the capital, with the wait-list at some hospitals stretching into September, according to Caixin, a Chinese investigative news outlet.

The latest flare-up emerged after 56 days of no new locally-transmitted cases in Beijing, and despite an order by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to fortify the capital against the virus.

But Mr. Wu on Thursday expressed confidence that the peak of the latest wave had passed and that the number of new infections would soon be declining. “Beijing’s epidemic has already been controlled,” he said.

On Friday, Beijing recorded 25 new cases, four more than were reported a day earlier.

 

 

A theater executive says masks will not be required at the movies, prompting a backlash.

 

Adam Aron, chief executive of AMC Entertainment Holdings, has prompted a backlash on social media by saying that moviegoers would not be required to wear masks at the company’s theaters when they reopen next month.

“We did not want to be drawn into a political controversy,” Mr. Aron said in an interview published on Thursday by Variety magazine. “We thought it might be counterproductive if we forced mask wearing on those people who believe strongly that it is not necessary.”

Mr. Aron also said that AMC Theaters, the largest theater operator in the United States, would not perform temperature checks on patrons, a practice some businesses have adopted to screen for fever related to the virus.

The company had already announced this month that patrons might be encouraged, but not required, to wear masks but that face coverings would be mandatory for all employees, a point that Mr. Aron reiterated in the interview.

But his comments prompted a swift backlash anyway.

“How is public health ‘political?’” one person wrote on Twitter.

“Then I’m out!” appeared on another Twitter account. “You should be protecting your customers. Follow the science.”

A spokesman for AMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

 

 

College and professional sports in the U.S. stumble toward a renewal that may not come in 2020.

 

Globe Life Field, the new home of the Texas Rangers. If baseball doesn’t hurry, it may not use it at all this year.Credit...LM Otero/Associated Press

As cases rise in 20 states around the United States, pockets of student-athletes returning to campus have tested positive, underscoring the difficulty colleges and professional sports leagues face as they prepare for the possibility of a fall sports season.

The University of Texas, where football players began voluntary workouts this week, said Thursday that 13 players had tested positive, and another 10 were self-quarantining after officials carried out contact tracing. Last week, the University of Houston suspended voluntary workouts for its athletes after six of them tested positive. And at Southern Methodist University, officials said this week that five of 75 athletes tested were positive.

At least eight Kansas State University athletes tested positive for the virus since returning to campus, officials said this week. University officials said athletes were being asked to quarantine for seven days after arriving on campus and were not being allowed to practice until they tested negative. Many of the athletes who tested positive were asymptomatic, according to their universities. As students return to campus, they risk bringing the virus with them and seeding outbreaks in parts of the country with relatively few cases. Some fall games can usually attract about 100,000 fans.

“Unless players are essentially in a bubble — insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day — it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said Thursday on CNN. “If there is a second wave, which is certainly a possibility and which would be complicated by the predictable flu season, football may not happen this year.”

At least four Division I football games have already been canceled. On Thursday, the Atlantic Coast Conference said that it would move its annual kickoff event to a virtual format, following similar decisions by the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conferences.

In professional sports, no leagues have regular-season games on any public schedules. Because of precautions, there are few solid plans to include fans. And the N.F.L. slate could be in jeopardy as teams are unsure about the start of training camps in July.

Major League Baseball may not happen, either. For weeks, team owners and players have not been able to agree on how to stage a shortened season.

The N.B.A. wants to quarantine teams in Florida to finish its season in August and perform a two-month postseason beyond that, though some players are balking at such confinement. The N.H.L. has similar ideas, but nothing is truly scheduled.

There are some glints of optimism. Professional golf, NASCAR and combat sports have returned — and tennis is expected to resume in August — though more as made-for-TV events than as anything resembling a collective experience. NASCAR will hold a race in Alabama this weekend, but attendance will be limited to 5,000 fans.

 

 

A Canadian doctor tested positive. Then the police opened an investigation.

 

A doctor in a small city in Canada tested positive. Then the police opened a criminal investigation.

The crime? He had driven from the province of New Brunswick into Quebec, and returned without self-isolating, violating an emergency rule. The authorities accused him of bringing back the virus and sparking an outbreak, which he disputes. He believes he contracted the virus at his hospital job.

The story of the doctor, Jean Robert Ngola Monzinga, captures the fear and uncertainty the pandemic has unleashed. While it has brought some communities together, it has turned others against one another. In some places, doctors and nurses have been physically attacked and ostracized as perceived vectors of the disease.

Dr. Ngola made the trip to pick up his 4-year-old daughter, stopping for a job interview along the way. Two weeks later, he and his daughter tested positive. The same day, he was denounced online and by the provincial government, and suspended from his job without pay.

 

 

Antibodies may last only two months, especially in people who didn’t show symptoms, a new study finds.

 

Medical workers performing an antibody test in Bucharest, Romania, last week.Credit...Robert Ghement/EPA, via Shutterstock

Antibodies to the new virus may last only two to three months in the body, especially in people who never showed symptoms while they were infected, according to a study published on Thursday.

The new study, published in Nature Medicine, looked at only 37 people who did not show symptoms when infected, but it is the first to offer a characterization of the immune response in such people.

It suggests that asymptomatic people mount a weaker response to the virus than people who develop symptoms. And within weeks, antibody levels fall to undetectable levels in 40 percent of asymptomatic people and 13 percent of symptomatic people.

“That is a concern, but I’d point out that these are pretty small group sizes,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York who was not involved in the work. She also noted that immune cells would continue to offer protection even in the absence of antibodies.

“Most people are generally not aware of T cell immunity and so much of the conversation has focused on antibody levels,” she said.

Still, the results offer a strong note of caution against the idea of “immunity certificates” for people who have recovered from the illness. If levels of immunity decrease so soon after illness, the authors suggest, people who have had the infection once might fall ill a second time.

Antibodies to other coronaviruses, including those that cause SARS and MERS, are thought to last about a year. Scientists had hoped that antibodies to the new virus might last at least as long.

 

 

An audience in Madrid isn’t completely human.

 

Mannequins occupied some of the seats during the reopening of a theater in Madrid on Wednesday.Credit...Raphael Minder/The New York Times

When one of Madrid’s main public theaters reopened on Wednesday, the audience was limited to a third of the theater’s capacity because of virus-related restrictions.

The rest of the auditorium was filled with dummies.

Madrid is Spain’s last major city to be kept under a stricter version of a nationwide lockdown, ahead of the June 21 lifting of a state of emergency that was declared in mid-March.

Before the show, spectators lined up outside the Canal theater complex under the supervision of theater workers, in order to maintain social distancing and have their temperatures checked at the entrance.

A dance performance by Israel Galván, one of Spain’s most famous flamenco choreographers, lasted less than an hour. What took longer than usual, however, was leaving, as an employee used the sound system to tell each section of the auditorium exactly when to stand up.

 

 

Trump derides virus testing and questions face masks in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

 

President Trump questioned the use of masks as a means of slowing the virus’s spread.Credit...Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Mr. Trump derided the importance of virus testing and raised doubts about the value of face masks in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published on Thursday.

“I personally think testing is overrated, even though I created the greatest testing machine in history,” Mr. Trump said. He added that because more tests lead to a higher number of confirmed cases, at least in the short term, “in many ways, it makes us look bad.”

Mr. Trump questioned the use of masks as a means of slowing the virus’s spread, and said some people wear them to signal political opposition to him. Most experts say that risk does not outweigh the benefits of widespread use of face masks.

“They put their finger on the mask, and they take them off, and then they start touching their eyes and touching their nose and their mouth,” Mr. Trump said. “And then they don’t know how they caught it?”

Mr. Trump shrugged off concerns that attendees at his scheduled indoor rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday will be at risk of infection.

 

 

‘In Harm’s Way’: The Times is collecting stories from health care workers fighting the pandemic.

Since the killing of George Floyd, some of these health care workers have joined the fight against another crisis: racism. While acknowledging the risk of infection posed by protests, they say this movement is too important to sit out.

 

Tawana Coates.Credit...Erik Branch for The New York Times

A lot of the demonstrations took place around the hospital. I went back to work a couple of days after the death of George Floyd. You feel heartbroken. I was an African-American going back to work as a minority, not knowing if the majority is feeling the same way. The last place you want to be is at work. The first conversations I had with everyone were: “What can we do as white Americans? How can I help the black community? What can I do to help reduce my own implicit bias?” It was uncomfortable, but a lot of people were willing and open to have those conversations.

Talking to a lot of my patients, women who look like Breonna Taylor and who also look like me, and having conversations throughout clinic, you could tell how the city was fired up wanting justice for Breonna Taylor.

Knowing that we serve a majority African-American population and knowing black social injustices are happening around the country, I felt it was really important for us physicians to take a stand to show the community that we support them. That’s why I helped organize the White Coats for Black Lives demonstration.

 

Source：https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/world/coronavirus-cases-usa-world.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-coronavirus-national&variant=show®ion=TOP_BANNER&context=storylines_menu

 

 

Convalescent plasma is safe for Covid-19 patients, but more research needed

From CNN Health’s Jen Christensen

 

Convalescent plasma -- blood from recovered patients who had Covid-19 -- that has been transfused to hospitalized patients is considered safe, according to a new study.

The study published Thursday in Mayo Clinic Proceedings looked at results from 20,000 patients.

Researchers from the US Food and Drug Administration’s Expanded Access Program for Covid-19 looked at the results from patients who doctors thought might progress to a severe or life-threatening stage of the illness. They were transfused between April 3 and June 11.

Less than 1% of patients experienced serious adverse events. The number of people who died declined to 8.6% at the 7th day of the trial, compared to the 12% who died in a previous part of the safety study of 5,000 patients. 

 “Our efforts to understand convalescent plasma continue,” said author Dr. Michael Joyner on the Mayo Clinic website. Joyner is a principal investigator at Mayo Clinic. “We’re optimistic, but must remain objective as we assess increasing amounts of data.”

The authors caution that just because the treatment is safe, doesn’t mean that it is effective in treating Covid-19.

The study has limitations and more research will need to be done to determine if this works with this disease. There are several studies underway.

 

Source：https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-06-19-20-intl/index.html

 

 

 

Czech Republic reports jump in new coronavirus cases

 

The Czech Republic reported its biggest one-day jump in new coronavirus cases in two months on Friday, with the daily rise exceeding 100 for only the third time since mid-April, Reuters reports.

The number of new cases was 118 on Thursday, the Health Ministry said, the largest daily rise since April 21. The central European country has since May been relaxing rules to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The country had reported 10,283 cases as of Friday morning, of which almost three quarters have recovered. Its death toll of 334 is a fraction of those seen it its western neighbours.

With cases waning, the government has started focusing on localised measures rather than nationwide bans to contain the spread of the virus.

According to health officials, the country has two hot spots in Prague and the eastern mining region of Karvina.

 

 

India: Lockdown reimposed in Chennai

 

Indian officials have reimposed a lockdown in the southern city of Chennai and three neighbouring districts.

The BBC reports that only essential services and neighbourhood grocery shops will be permitted to function under the 12-day lockdown, set to end on 30 June.

Chennai is India’s sixth-largest city and the capital of Tamil Nadu state. It has more than 37,000 of Tamil Nadu’s confirmed 50,000 infections, making it one of India’s largest hotspots.

With just over 600 deaths in total, the state has a relatively low mortality rate – but its death toll is being reviewed after reports suggested that at least 200 deaths in Chennai were not included in the official tally.

It is the only city to reimpose a lockdown to curb the rise in infections.

India has the fourth-highest caseload in the world, with more than 350,000 confirmed cases of the disease. Daily reports of infections are increasing, with Tamil Nadu among the worst-affected states.

This is Alexandra Topping taking the reins of the global coronavirus liveblog for the next few hours. As ever, if you have tips or contributions to make – or you think we’ve neglected the news where you are, please do get in touch. My email is alexandra.topping@theguardian.com and I’m @lexytopping on Twitter, my DMs are open.

 

 

 

Summary

Here are the most important recent developments in the global coronavirus pandemic:

• Global death toll from Covid-19 passes 450,000. The number of people who have lost their lives in the pandemic so far stands at 453,289, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. There are 8,464,739 known cases worldwide. Both figures are likely to be higher, due to differing testing rates and definitions, time lags and suspected underreporting.

• The US on Thursday questioned China’s credibility on reporting fresh coronavirus cases in Beijing and called for neutral observers to assess the extent of the outbreak. China has locked down the capital as it seeks to prevent a second wave of Covid-19, reporting 158 cases since a fresh cluster was detected last week. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo, an outspoken critic of China, urged greater transparency during talks Wednesday in Hawaii with senior Chinese official Yang Jiechi, as David Stilwell, the top US diplomat for East Asia who accompanied Pompeo, said “I would hope that their numbers and their reporting are more accurate than what we saw in the case of Wuhan and other places in the PRC, but that remains to be seen.”

• China publishes genome data for coronavirus behind new outbreak. China has published the genome data for the coronavirus behind the latest Covid-19 outbreak in the capital, Beijing, the website of state-backed National Microbiology Data Center showed on Friday. State-backed Beijing News also reported that the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention submitted the genome sequencing data for the virus to the World Health Organization, which had previously sought access to the data.

• Tokyo lifts remaining business restrictions. Tokyo lifted all remaining restrictions on businesses on Friday, although officials urged caution over a possible second wave of the coronavirus. The measure, the final phase of a three-step easing of preventive measures in the Japanese capital, means live music venues, nightclubs and similar establishments where it is difficult to avoid the “three Cs” – closed spaces, crowded places and close contact – will be allowed to reopen with the blessing of local authorities.

• Anthony Fauci thinks return to full lockdowns is unlikely. The US does not require more widespread lockdowns to get its Covid-19 outbreak under control, despite the fact that the national daily infection rate is not showing signs of decline, leading government expert Anthony Fauci told AFP in an interview Thursday. “I don’t think we’re going to be talking about going back to lockdown,” he said when asked whether places like California and Texas that are seeing a surge in their caseload should reissue stay-at-home orders.“I think we’re going to be talking about trying to better control those areas of the country that seem to be having a surge of cases.”

• WHO eyes 2bn vaccine doses by end of 2021. The World Health Organization said Thursday that a few hundred million Covid-19 vaccine doses could be produced by the end of the year - and be targeted at those most vulnerable to the virus. The UN health agency said it was working on that assumption, with a view to two billion doses by the end of 2021, as pharmaceutical firms rush to find a vaccine. WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said researchers were working on more than 200 vaccine candidates around the world, including 10 that are in human testing.

• San Quentin: outcry after Covid-19 cases at California prison triple in two weeks. The number of coronavirus cases in California’s San Quentin state prison has tripled within the last two weeks, prompting advocates, families and attorneys to demand urgent action to fast track the release of prisoners and curb the spread among correctional officers. San Quentin, California’s oldest prison and home to the state’s only death row for male prisoners, reported its first batch of 15 positive cases on 3 June. Since then, that number has risen to 46. Organizers are pointing to the 30 May transfer of more than 100 incarcerated people from the California Institution for Men (CIM) in Chino as a catalyst for the spread of Covid-19 in the prison:

• India lifts export ban on hydroxychloroquine. India Thursday fully lifted an export ban on hydroxychloroquine, a drug favored by US President Donald Trump as a treatment against coronavirus, as questions remain over the malaria medicine’s effectiveness against Covid-19. The directorate general of foreign trade said in a notice that “hydroxychloroquine and its formulations” were now “free” to be exported.

• ‘Extensive testing’ in New Zealand has not uncovered new cases. Covid-19 testing of thousands of people in New Zealand has not uncovered any new cases, health officials say. The testing was undertaken after a quarantine bungle when two women were allowed out of managed isolation without being tested – and later turned out to have the coronavirus. Dr Ashley Bloomfield, the director-general of health, is giving a news conference in the capital, Wellington, during which he said the day of zero new cases of Covid-19 to report was “very reassuring”.

• Non-essential shops in Wales can reopen from Monday. All non-essential shops in Wales will be able to reopen from Monday so long as physical distancing can take place, as part of the devolved government’s cautious easing of lockdown restrictions.But the Labour-led administration is not expected to change its guidance that people should not travel more than five miles. The government will review the requirement to stay local by 6 July.

• Mexico confirms record new cases. Mexico’s health ministry reported on Thursday a record 5,662 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections and 667 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 165,455 cases and 19,747 deaths. The government has said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.

•  Chinese medical expert says coronavirus under control in Beijing. “The epidemic in Beijing has been brought under control,” said Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China’s Center for Diseases Prevention and Control, although he said the capital can still expect sporadic new cases. The city has recorded 158 infections since confirming the first on 11 June in its worst outbreak since early February, which has been traced to the sprawling wholesale food centre of Xinfadi in the south-west of the city.

Source：https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jun/19/coronavirus-covid-19-live-news-update-us-questions-beijing-cluster-figures-who-vaccine-doses-latest-updates