CORONAVIRUS UPDATE - 4 APRIL 2020 - OVER 1 MILLION INFECTIONS AND MORE THAN 60 000 DEAD GLOBALLY

Global cases of the new coronavirus have passed 1 million and more than 60,000 people have died, a Reuters tally showed on Saturday, in a pandemic that has hammered the world economy.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
* Reuters tally of reported cases and deaths.

* For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread, open tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.

* U.S.-focused tracker with state-by-state and county map, open tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T in an external browser.

ASIA
* China mourned the thousands who have died in the outbreak, flying the national flag at half mast throughout the country and suspending all forms of entertainment.

* Authorities in some India states warned on Saturday that lockdowns to rein in the pandemic could be extended in parts of the country as the number of cases rose above 3,000.

* Australia reported a sustained fall in new infections and conducted the biggest peacetime maritime operation on Sydney Harbour, refueling foreign cruise ships before expelling them from local waters.

EUROPE
* Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will ask parliament to extend lockdown measures by 15 more days until April 26. The daily pace of new infections and deaths slowed again on Saturday in one of the world’s most hard-hit countries.

* Britain is unlikely to lift its stringent lockdown rules until the end of May, once the spread of the coronavirus has started to slow, a leading government adviser said as the death toll rose to 4,313.

* Germany’s confirmed cases have risen by 6,082 in the past 24 hours, a slight decrease from the day before, according to data from the government’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI).

AMERICAS
* Two of the principal U.S. coronavirus hot spots - New York and Louisiana - reported their biggest jumps in COVID-19 deaths yet on Friday, as the White House sent mixed messages on whether Americans should cover their face if they venture outdoors.

* New York City alone accounted for more than a quarter of the 7,077 U.S. coronavirus deaths tallied by Johns Hopkins University on Friday. Known U.S. infections, approaching 275,000 cases, made up about 25% of the more than 1 million cases reported worldwide.

* Brazilians increasingly disapprove of President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the outbreak and overwhelmingly support officials he has attacked for advocating social distancing measures, two polls showed.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi postponed the launch of mega-projects including the Grand Egyptian Museum and moving civil servants to a planned new capital city to 2021 from 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak, the presidency said.

* The United Arab Emirates has extended a de facto overnight curfew indefinitely to disinfect public areas and Saudi Arabia has locked down parts of the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

* The coronavirus has infected more than 3,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa and killed about 100, prompting some of the world’s poorest countries to shut land and sea borders.

ECONOMIC FALLOUT
* The job losses suffered in March as the U.S. economy shut down were widespread but still were disproportionately felt in a handful of employment sectors and by women, the young and the less educated.

* The pandemic has brought the global economy to a standstill and plunged the world into a recession that will be “way worse” than the global financial crisis a decade ago, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Friday.

* Global stock markets sank on Friday following more signs that the pandemic would take a massive toll on economic growth. [MKTS/GLOB]

via - REUTERS