CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: Key updates
More than 311,000 dead
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 311,959 people since the outbreak first emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Sunday. At least 4,647,980 cases of coronavirus have been registered in 196 countries and territories. The United States has the highest number of deaths overall with 88,754 from 1,467,884 cases. Britain has the second highest toll overall, with 34,466 deaths from 240,161 cases. It is followed by Italy with 31,763 deaths, Spain with 27,650 fatalities and France with 27,625 deaths.
Not only a respiratory illness
The desperate need of severely ill coronavirus patients for mechanical ventilators to help them breathe had led many people to think of COVID-19 primarily as a respiratory disease, at least in adults. But among nearly 5,500 coronavirus patients in the largest New York health system, more than one in three hospitalized patients developed acute kidney injuries, and nearly 15% required dialysis, researchers reported on Thursday in the medical journal Kidney International. Other research teams have reported that the virus can infect cells in the small intestine. And on Wednesday, researchers reported in The New England Journal of Medicine that autopsies of 27 people who died of COVID-19 showed the virus in tissues of 17 hearts, 17 livers, 8 brains and the kidneys of 13 people. There have also been reports of the virus causing blood clots that can lead to strokes.
Single digit cases in S Korea
South Korea yesterday reported five new domestic cases of coronavirus, all linked to a cluster of cases centred around bars and nightclubs in the capital which has raised fears in the country of a fresh wave of contagion. After weeks of nearly no new domestic coronavirus cases, South Korea relaxed its lockdown on May 6, but a subsequent spike in infections linked to Seoul's Itaewon nightlife neighbourhood forced a rapid re-think.
Wear masks, or go to jail
Qatar yesterday began enforcing the world's toughest penalties of up to three years' imprisonment or and fines of as much as $55,000 for failing to wear masks in public. More than 30,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the tiny Gulf country -- 1.1 percent of the 2.75 million population -- although just 15 people have died. Only the micro-states of San Marino and the Vatican had higher per-capita infection rates, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
First virus death in Nepal
Nepal reported its first coronavirus death late Saturday -- a 29-year-old woman who recently gave birth -- as the total number of people infected in the country reached 281. In January, Nepal was the first south Asian country to report a case of coronavirus. The country has been under lockdown since March 24 after a second case was confirmed.
Source: AFP, reuters
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