(Reuters) – A World Health Organization-led coalition fighting the COVID-19 pandemic is asking government and private sector donors to help raise $31.3 billion in the next 12 months to develop and deliver tests, treatments and vaccines for the disease.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
* More than 9.66 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 489,398 have died, a Reuters tally showed as of 1600 GMT on Friday.
* For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread, open https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.
* For a U.S.-focused tracker with state-by-state and county map, open https://tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T in an external browser.
* Eikon users, see MacroVitals (cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?navid=1592404098) for a case tracker and a summary of developments.
EUROPE
* Families of elderly Spanish virus victims are initiating hundreds of compensation and criminal claims for nursing home residents who died often without hospital care in a legal morass that could affect the national political balance.
* Britain’s official death toll from confirmed COVID-19 cases rose by 186 to 43,414, the Department of Health said on Friday.
* Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan discussed the impact of the pandemic by phone, Athens and Ankara said – rare such contact for two neighbours at odds over a range of issues.
AMERICAS
* With new cases surging in Texas and Florida, officials ordered bars to close again and imposed tighter restrictions on restaurants, setting back efforts to reopen their economies.
* The novel coronavirus, now spreading through the smaller towns of Brazil’s interior, risks returning to major cities in a so-called “boomerang effect,” as a lack of specialized medical treatment forces patients into larger urban centers.
* New York Governor Andrew Cuomo criticized states that reopened their economies before getting the virus under control, saying there was “undeniable, irrefutable evidence” those states made a mistake.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Japan recorded on Friday more than 100 new infections for the first time since May 9, hitting its highest daily total since it eased a lockdown, Kyodo News reported.
* Australia will stick with plans to further ease coronavirus curbs, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, despite a spike in infections in Victoria state.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* South Africa will allow casinos and cinemas to reopen and restaurants to resume sit-down meals on Monday in a further easing of lockdown restrictions despite a sharp rise in infections.
* Israel and the United Arab Emirates will cooperate in the fight against the coronavirus, the two countries said on Thursday.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Astrazeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate is probably the world’s leading candidate and most advanced in terms of development, the WHO’s chief scientist said.
* Vaxart Inc said it would test its experimental oral COVID-19 vaccine on monkeys infected with the coronavirus in a study funded by the Trump administration’s vaccine-acceleration program called “Operation Warp Speed”.
* The U.S. will ship more of Gilead Sciences Inc’s antiviral treatment remdesivir to states experiencing an increase in cases.
ECONOMIC FALLOUT
* Mexico’s economy shrank by a record 17% during April as the lockdown devastated economic activity, official data showed.
* International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the global economic crisis spurred by the coronavirus could ultimately test the Fund’s $1 trillion in total resources, “but we’re not there yet.”
* The outlook for a global economic recovery over the past month has worsened or at best stayed about the same, according to a firm majority of economists in Reuters polls, with the ongoing recession expected to be deeper than predicted.
(Compiled by Anna Rzhevkina and Devika Syamnath; Editing by Frances Kerry and Maju Samuel)
