Coronavirus Live Updates: Germany Registers 248 New COVID-19 Cases, Three New Deaths - Institute

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Germany has confirmed 248 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, with the total count reaching 198,804, the Robert Koch Institute said on Sunday.

The death toll has grown by three to 9,063 people within the same period of time. Some 184,600 people have recovered since the start of the outbreak.

A day earlier, the country confirmed 378 new cases and six fatalities.

Bavaria accounts for most of Germany's COVID-19 cases (49,204), followed by North Rhine-Westphalia (44,915) and Baden-Wurttemberg (36,041). The German capital of Berlin has so far recorded 8,637 cases.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil increased by more than 39,000 in the past 24 hours, and over 1,000 new deaths were reported in that period, the country's Health Ministry informs.

There are now a total of 1,839,850 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Brazil. In the past 24 hours, 39,023 new cases and 1,071 new deaths from COVID-19 were confirmed, according to Saturday health ministry data. Brazil's total coronavirus death toll stands at 71,469.

On Friday, Brazil registered over 45,000 new coronavirus cases and more than 1,200 new deaths from COVID-19. Over 1.1 million people have recovered from COVID-19 in Brazil since the start of the epidemic in the country, according to the health ministry.

Brazil has the second-highest coronavirus death toll, it is surpassed only by the United States, which has registered over 134,700 COVID-19 fatalities, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. Brazil and the United States are also the top two countries in terms of the total number of registered coronavirus cases (the United States has the highest total of over 3.2 million COVID-19 cases).

TEL AVIV (Sputnik) - Israel registered 1,198 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours with the total number of confirmed cases now standing at 37,464, according to the country's Health Ministry.

As of Saturday night, there are 18,296 active coronavirus cases in Israel, 134 of the patients are in serious condition and 49 of them are on lung ventilators, the health ministry said.

In the past 24 hours, three more deaths from COVID-19 were registered in Israel with the country's total coronavirus death toll now standing at 354. Over 18,800 people have recovered from COVID-19 in Israel.

On Monday, the Israeli government decided to close bars, clubs, gyms and event venues amid a sharp rise in the number of new coronavirus cases. Restaurants are now required to limit the number of customers.

On Tuesday, the Israeli Health Ministry's director of public health resigned, criticising the government's handling of the coronavirus outbreak and saying that her professional opinion was not being taken into account amid prolonged debates that have been going on for weeks amid a new spike in infections.

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz said on Wednesday that he had decided to self-quarantine after possibly being in contact with an individual who had tested positive for COVID-19.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The COVID-19 death toll in the Russian capital has risen by 27 over the past 24 hours to 4,143, Moscow's coronavirus response centre said on Saturday.

The response centre registered 29 deaths over a 24-hour period on Friday.

Public health officials in the United Kingdom have reported 148 new coronavirus disease-related deaths over the preceding 24 hours, three times more than the corresponding rise reported on the previous day, the country’s Department of Health and Social Care said on Saturday.

This latest rise sees the UK’s COVID-19 death toll, as reported by the department, rise to 44,798. On Friday, just 48 new deaths were confirmed by public health officials.

The Department of Health and Social Care also confirmed on Saturday that 820 new positive tests for the disease had been confirmed over the past 24 hours, a significant rise from the 512 new cases reported on Friday.

The UK's COVID-19 case total now stands at 288,953, the department stated.

The latest surge in cases and deaths takes place exactly one week after the government permitted pubs, cafes, bars, hotels, and hairdressers to reopen in England, as part of efforts to bring economic relief to the country’s hospitality and service sectors.

The global COVID-19 case total has risen above 12.3 million after 219,983 new positive tests were reported worldwide over the past 24 hours, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday.

The latest rise to the case total is slightly below the 228,102 new positive tests confirmed by the WHO in its daily statistical bulletin on Friday.

According to the organization, 132,683 new positive tests were reported in the United States and a further 69,184 new cases were also confirmed in Brazil.

The global coronavirus disease death toll rose by 5,286 over the preceding 24 hours to 556,335, the WHO said. The corresponding rise to the death toll on Friday was 5,565.

On Friday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the launch of the organization’s new Access Initiative for Quitting Tobacco, which aims to help more than one billion people worldwide stop smoking amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Volunteers who have been administered a vaccine produced by Russia’s Gamalei Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology are responding to inoculation positively, and their condition raises no concerns, the director of the Scientific-Practical Center of Interventional Cardioangiology of Sechenov University told reporters on Saturday.

The vaccine is being separately tested on volunteers at Sechenov University and the Burdenko Main Military Clinical Hospital.

"In general, the vaccine is well tolerated, and the condition [of the volunteers] does not cause any clinical concerns," the center’s director, Sergey Semitko, said.

According to him, reliable results of the first phase of the clinical trial will be ready at the end of the month.

The vaccine is made artificially and does not contain coronavirus itself, Vadim Tarasov, director of the university’s Institute for Pharmaceutical Science and Translational Medicine, specified.

"The drug is a recombinant adenovirus vaccine, which, in fact, is inanimate and created artificially … but the principle of its action is that it should cause immunity, an immune response similar to the immune response that occurs to a coronavirus," he clarified.

Brazil and other Latin American countries with an high incidence of COVID-19 will be the first to receive the Avifavir antiviral drug, the Russian Direct Investment Fund's (RDIF) CEO, Kirill Dmitriev, said on Saturday.

"The video conference with almost 1,500 representatives from across Latin America today confirmed the high levels of foreign interest in Avifavir. We wish to thank all the conference’s participants and are ready to work in partnership to export the drug and support Latin American states in their fight against the pandemic," Dmitriev said, as quoted in a press release, following the online presentation of Avifavir to the representatives of Latin American and Caribbean states.

The executive also said during a televised interview that his organization had already received requests for the supply of Avifavir from more than 50 countries.

"Our priority is those countries where the number of coronavirus infections is sharply increasing. This is, of course, Brazil and many other Latin American countries," Dmitriev said.

Avifavir, the first Russian drug against COVID-19, was approved by the country's Health Ministry in late May. It has proven 90 percent effective in treating the coronavirus disease during trials. On Wednesday, the RDIF asked the ministry to allow outpatient administration of Avifavir to coronavirus patients who undergo treatment at home.

The recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the eurozone is deteriorating and threatens to tear the bloc's currency union apart, EU Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni said in an interview with Die Welt newspaper.

According to Gentiloni, the eurozone economies are on the edge of being torn apart due to shrinking GDP in countries like Italy, France and Spain, which are seeing a 10-11 percent drop.

The official further noted that EU countries should agree on a plan for economic recovery as soon as possible, as it would build confidence in national economies and contribute to a faster recovery.

EU members still need to reach a consensus on the pending 750 billion euro ($843 billion) coronavirus recovery fund recently tabled by the EU Commission. The EU leaders are scheduled to meet on July 17-18, but the so-called frugal four group of European countries — Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden — refuse to go ahead with the plan.

Two US marine bases on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa were put on a lockdown on Saturday in light of new COVID-10 clusters, the Kyodo news agency reported.

The bases in question are Marine Corps Air Station Futenma and Camp Hansen.

Marine Corps Installations Pacific, meanwhile, announced the decision to toughen COVID-19 restrictions at its bases.

"In light of recent clusters of positive COVID-19 cases on Okinawa, Marine Forces Japan has implemented additional HPCON [health protection condition] measures to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. These measures have been put into place to protect our forces, our families, and our local communities," Marine Corps Installations Pacific wrote on Facebook, posting guidelines limiting the personnel's off-base activities.

The authority noted that the "measures are reviewed every 72 hours."

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The United States has seen another record spike in daily coronavirus cases, with more than 66,600 infections reported in the past 24 hours, data compiled by Johns Hopkins University shows.

The country has registered 66,627 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours. The previous record of over 63,200 cases was reported the day before.

Another 802 patients died during the given period, which is less than the 990 the day before.

In total, the US has 3.1 million overall cases. Over 983,000 people have recovered, and more than 134,000 have died.

TOKYO (Sputnik) - New clusters of the coronavirus have been discovered at US military facilities in the southern Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, local media reported on Saturday.

According to the newspaper Ryukyu Shimpo, there are currently 60 confirmed COVID-19 cases at the US bases in Okinawa, 38 of which were registered at the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

The media outlet suggested that the spike in cases had emerged in June or early July, after local residents and some US military personnel started gathering in big groups for outdoor activities, including picnics.

On Friday, the US military command re-imposed restrictions on the movement of servicemen and staffers of US bases in Japan due to an increased incidence of COVID-19. As such, the use of public transport, as well as visits to restaurants and cafes have been banned. To date, four US bases in Japan have reported COVID-19 cases.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is planning to release a further 8,000 inmates by the end of the summer as part of response efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19, the government agency said in a press release.

"Estimates of 8,000 inmates could be eligible for release by the end of August, in addition to the state’s reduction of about 10,000 persons since the start of the pandemic", the statement read.

According to CDCR Secretary Ralph Diaz, such measures are being taken to ensure the health and safety of prisoners and staff.

"We aim to implement these decompression measures in a way that aligns both public health and public safety", Diaz said, as cited in the statement.

The CDCR noted that only those prisoners whose sentence expires in a year or sooner and who have no signs indicating a high risk of violent acts may be released. In addition, the release will not affect prisoners who are in jail for crimes related to domestic violence, violent crimes, or illegal acts of a sexual nature.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia has registered 6,611 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, taking the cumulative total to 720,547, the coronavirus response centre said on Saturday.

"In the last 24 hours, Russia has confirmed 6,611 COVID-19 cases in 83 regions, including 1,766 (26.7 percent) without symptoms", the centre said.

Moscow has registered 678 cases in 24 hours, which is more than any other region in Russia. St. Petersburg registered 296 new cases during the given period.

At the same time, 8,378 people have been discharged after receiving coronavirus treatment, bringing the total number of recoveries to 497,446. Over the last 24 hours, 188 patients with the coronavirus died, with the total death toll reaching 11,205.

ALMATY/TASHKENT/BISHKEK (Sputnik) - Kazakhstan has recorded 1,708 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the overall total to 56,455, the interdepartmental commission on coronavirus reported on Saturday.

Earlier, the Health Ministry reported that as of July 6 the country had registered 264 deaths from COVID-19. The coronavirus death toll in Kazakhstan is updated weekly. The number of recovered patients has surpassed 31,800.

"A total of 1,708 new cases of coronavirus infection were registered, of which 698 were symptomatic carriers, 1,010 were asymptomatic carriers", the commission said on its Telegram channel.

Elsewhere in the region, Uzbekistan’s COVID-19 case total has surpassed 12,000 after a record 483 new cases were registered over the past 24 hours, according to the country’s Ministry of Health. The corresponding rise reported on Saturday morning was 277.

"As of 10:00 [05:00 GMT] on 11 July 2020, the number of coronavirus disease cases in Uzbekistan is 12,206", the ministry said in a post on Telegram.

The country’s COVID-19 death toll has also risen by three to 55, the ministry said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – India has confirmed 27,114 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, with the total number of those infected having reached 820,916, the country's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday.

This is the biggest daily increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India since the start of the outbreak. The death toll from the disease has reached 22,123, with 519 new fatalities recorded over the past day.

The central Indian state of Maharashtra, with 238,461 confirmed cases remains the most affected region. It is followed by the southern state of Tamil Nadu, with 130,261 cases, and the national capital territory of Delhi, with 109,140 cases.

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) – The Venezuelan government has prolonged the state of emergency, introduced over the COVID-19 pandemic, for a month. This is the fourth extension.

"In line with a decree by President Nicolas Maduro, the constitutional regime of the state of emergency is additionally prolonged for 30 days to continue the fight against the pandemic", Vice President Delcy Rodriguez told the broadcaster VTV late Friday.

The state of emergency was declared in Venezuela on 13 March and in line with the latest presidential decree will last until 10 August.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Germany has confirmed 378 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, with the total count reaching 198,556, the Robert Koch Institute said on Saturday.

The death toll grew by six to 9,060 people within the same period of time. Some 184,400 people have recovered since the start of the outbreak.