More than 8.3 million people have been confirmed to have the new coronavirus around the world. More than four million have recovered, while 447,000 have died, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Here’s are the top 10 global developments this morning:
1. Peru topped 240,000 total cases of coronavirus, surpassing hard-hit Italy, government data showed, even as the pace of infections has begun to moderate in the South American nation.
2. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, is undergoing treatment in hospital for pneumonia after he tested positive for COVID-19 this week, the government said.
His spokesman said, “his general health status is good.” Hernandez’s wife, Ana Garcia, also tested positive for COVID-19.
3. A genetic analysis of COVID-19 patients suggests that blood type might influence whether someone develops severe disease, according to a New England Journal of Medicine report.
Scientists who compared the genes of thousands of patients in Europe found that those who had Type A blood were more likely to have severe disease while those with Type O were less likely.
4. South Korea has reported 59 COVID-19 cases as infections steadily rise in the capital area where half the country’s 51 million people live, according to the Associated Press.
The figures announced on Thursday by South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bring the national caseload to 12,257, including 280 deaths.
5. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 580 to 187,764, Reuters news agency reported on Thursday quoting data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases.
6. President Donald Trump has said the United States would not close businesses again as several states reported rising numbers of new coronavirus infections.
7. Restaurants, gyms, schools and other locations closed down in March as the US braced for the coronavirus, which has so far sickened 2.16 million Americans and killed nearly 118,000.
8. A new study conducted by Chinese and American scientists said that humans may never develop immunity against the coronavirus, the South China Morning Post reported.
The conclusion was based on a non-peer reviewed study looking at whether hospital workers in Wuhan, where the infection was first reported, developed antibodies, after being exposed to the disease.
9. Many people in Jordan are struggling to meet basic needs after a more than two-month lockdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic, a UN Development Programme (UNDP) study said, with reports of unemployment expected to rise to 19 percent.
10. The World Health Organization has halted the trial test of the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus.
According to the WHO recent trials showed that the anti-malaria drug does not result in the reduction of mortality of hospitalised COVID-19 patients.