The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with over 5.96 million registered infections, including more than 182,900 fatalities and over 2.14 million recoveries. Over the past day, the US confirmed over 47,000 new cases and more than 900 related fatalities, the Johns Hopkins University said.
California has become the first US state where the number of confirmed coronavirus cases has surpassed 700,000 according to the latest JHU data.
GAZA (Sputnik) - The curfew in the Gaza Strip has been extended by 48 hours due to the situation with the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
"In connection with the aggravation of the situation with the coronavirus, the curfew in the enclave will be extended for another 48 hours", the spokesman said.
The curfew in the Palestinian enclave was first imposed on 25 August after the first cases of infection outside of isolation areas were registered, and has been extended several times since then.
BEIJING (Sputnik) - China has registered 10 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, all of them have been imported, while another 31 COVID-19 patients have recovered over that period, the country's National Health Commission said on Tuesday.
The country's total number of confirmed coronavirus cases now stands at 85,058, the death toll is 4,634. The total number of imported cases is 2,509.
In the past 24 hours, China registered 34 new asymptomatic cases, all of them have been imported, the National Health Commission said.
The total number of recovered individuals in China stands at over 80,200. More than 200 people with COVID-19 remain hospitalized in China.
TOKYO (Sputnik) - The death toll from the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Japan has risen by 12 over the past 24 hours to surpass 1,300, the NHK television channel reported.
The number of confirmed cases has increased by 429 to 69,228. The number of deaths currently stands at 1,311.
A total of 57,461 people have recovered from COVID-19.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Brazil now has a total of over 3.9 million confirmed COVID-19 cases with nearly 46,000 new cases registered in the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry informs.
Brazil's total number of confirmed coronavirus cases stands at 3,908,272. In the past 24 hours, 45,961 new cases and 553 new deaths from COVID-19 were registered in the county, the health ministry said on Monday.
Brazil's total coronavirus death toll stands at 121,381. More than 3 million people have recovered from COVID-19 in Brazil.
On Sunday, Brazil's COVID-19 death toll surpassed 120,800 and 16,158 new cases were registered. On Saturday, Brazil reported 41,350 new cases and 758 new deaths from the coronavirus infection. On Friday, the country reported 855 new deaths from COVID-19 and 43,412 new cases.
A week ago, Brazil's coronavirus death toll stood at around 115,000 and the total number of cases was at around 3.6 million.
"Another 11 patients, who were diagnosed with pneumonia and tested positive for the coronavirus infection, died in Moscow", the center said.
In the previous day, 12 people infected with the coronavirus died in Moscow.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The founder of fraudulent COVID-19 relief fund that charged small businesses $1,000 or more for reservations to guarantee payments of up to $15,000 pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and misleading the US Small Business Administration (SBA), the Justice Department said in a press release on Monday.
"Brandon Lewis today admitted to a wide range of brazen schemes specifically designed to profit illegally from the COVID-19 pandemic by defrauding scores of frightened consumers and small business owners desperate for a financial lifeline," Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in the release.
As part of his guilty plea, Lewis admitted that he created the so-called "COVID-19 Relief Fund," which he purportedly managed and oversaw. The fund promised desperate small business owners "guaranteed funds" of between $12,500 and $15,000 in exchange for an upfront "reservation" fee of between $995 and $1,200, the release said.
Lewis falsely claimed that "the fund has up to $250 million available for small businesses" and provided a link for applicants to "purchase a reservation now," the release said.
Lewis also admitted founding a similar organization called the "American Relief Fund," and an unrelated website called Home Kitchen Goods, which received $400,000 from more than 8,500 orders for pandemic-related goods such as hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes that were never delivered, the release added.
In another scheme, Lewis admitted that he lied to the SBA when submitting 68 fraudulent loan applications for 35 shell companies that perform no real business, according to the release.
KIEV, August 31 (Sputnik) - Ukrainian pharmaceutical companies have the capability to manufacture some 30-40 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine, and Kiev is holding negotiations on the matter with international partners, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said on Monday.
Earlier in August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, that Ukraine can organize mass production of a coronavirus vaccine upon its discovery.
"We are really considering this opportunity now [manufacturing vaccines]. We talked with our large pharmaceutical companies, which have the capacity to produce a vaccine. At full capacity, I think they could produce about 30-40 million doses per year," Stepanov told the Ukraina 24 TV channel.
The minister added that Ukrainian manufacturers have relevant certification to produce vaccines, while the talks with foreign companies on cooperation are already underway.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the United States has surpassed six million, the Johns Hopkins University tally revealed on Monday.
The data also shows that there are 183,203 COVID-19 related deaths in the United States.
LONDON (Sputnik) – A further 1,406 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the United Kingdom over the last 24 hours, lifting the total number of cases to 335,873, the Department of Health and Social Care reported on Monday.
The government body also confirmed that the country's death toll now stands at 41,501 after another two patients died within 28 days of their first positive test result for the novel coronavirus.
As of Monday, the seventh consecutive day with more than 1,000 daily cases in the UK, a total of 764 were in hospital beds, including 60 on ventilators, the official report added.
TORONTO (Sputnik) - The Canadian government has reached a preliminary agreement with the US biotechnology firm Novavax to import 76 million doses of its novel coronavirus vaccine, the company said in a statement on Monday.
"Novavax… today announced it has reached an agreement in principle with the government of Canada to supply up to 76 million doses of NVX-CoV2373, Novavax’ COVID-19 vaccine," the statement said.
The Novavax’s vaccine candidate is currently in Phase 2 of clinical trials in the United States, Australia and South Africa.
The company said the deal is expected to be finalized pending approval of the vaccine candidate by Health Canada.
Should the deal be finalized, the delivery of the vaccine will begin starting in the second quarter of 2021, the statement said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian biotechnology company Biocad will produce the country's next COVID-19 vaccine, which is to be developed by the Siberia-based Vektor Institute, Russia's minister of industry and trade, Denis Manturov, said on Monday.
"This enterprise was identified as a partner, the Biocad company ... they worked with [consumer watchdog] Rospotrebnadzor at the initial stage of the development and testing process... it would be logical for them to continue mastering the serial production of the vaccine," Manturov told reporters during a working visit to Crimea’s Sevastopol.
Clinical trials of Russia’s second coronavirus vaccine is set to be concluded in late September, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said last week, adding that no complications among the volunteers have been registered. If successful, the vaccine will carry the name EpiVacCorona.
Earlier in August, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the registration of the world’s first vaccine against the virus that causes COVID-19, which was developed by the Russian Gamaleya Research Institute.
Passenger traffic via the new car bridge from Russia to China across the Amur River will not be launched as planned on Tuesday due to COVID-19, a spokesperson for the Amur Region government told Sputnik.
The bridge linking Russia’s Blagoveshchensk city and China’s Heihe was scheduled to open in a test mode — with up to 200 trucks crossing the border per day — by 1 September.
"The situation with COVID-19 will not allow [us] to launch the bridge in a temporary mode on 1 September," the spokesperson said.
The bridge — the first one to connect Russia and China for car travel — has been under construction since 2016. The construction works of the Russian segment were completed last November. The bridge is expected to have a daily transit capacity of 5,500 people, 630 cargo vehicles, 164 buses and 68 cars.
The Italian government has stood by its decision to reopen schools after a high school in northern Italy was forced to shutter over a COVID-19 infection, media reported Monday.
According to Italy’s ANSA news agency, six students were isolated and the rest of the pupils were forced to stay at home after a high school teacher tested positive for COVID-19 in the lakeside town of Verbania in the northwestern Piedmont region.
Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte maintained that reopening schools was the government’s “top priority,” ANSA reported.
“We will do all we can to reopen schools on time," Conte was quoted as saying.
The next school year in Italy will begin 14 September, but many schools have reopened to give catch-up lessons to material missed earlier in the year due to the pandemic.
Italy’s coronavirus nightmare had seemed over, with daily new cases dwindling down to the hundreds, but the latter half of August has seen the number creep back up past the 1,000 mark. There have been nearly 270,000 cases of infection registered, with nearly 35,500 deaths as a result in Italy.
Countries around the world have been grappling with the prospect of reopening schools, a vital sector of the economy and public life, with the new realities of the pandemic.
Russia registered 4,993 coronavirus cases in 24 hours, which brings the cumulative total to 995,319, the federal response centre said Monday.
Moscow recorded 685 news cases, St. Petersburg 188, the Moscow region 146.
The centre recorded 83 deaths, which brings the total to 17,176, and 2,405 recoveries, which brings the total to 809,387.
— DGCA (@DGCAIndia) August 31, 2020
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany has surpassed 242,000 with 610 new cases having been reported in the past 24 hours, according to the Robert Koch Institute, which is responsible for disease control and prevention in Germany.
The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany now stands at 242,381. The country’s total COVID-19 death toll is 9,298 (three new deaths were confirmed in the past 24 hours), according to the latest data from the Robert Koch Institute.
On Sunday, Germany reported 785 new COVID-19 cases and six new coronavirus-related deaths.
More than 216,200 people have recovered from COVID-19 in Germany.
The Robert Koch Institute warns that there has been an increase in COVID-19 cases among younger age groups. There have also been reports of small local outbreaks and coronavirus cases reported among young travellers entering Germany.
