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- Coronavirus latest at a glance
In Thailand, shopping malls will reopen today and a nighttime curfew will be shortened by one hour, to 2300 to 0400, from 2200 to 0400.
The country is beginning to relax restrictions after reporting single-digit increases of infections from the new coronavirus this month. Parks, hair salons, markets and restaurants have also been allowed to reopen over recent weeks, provided that measures such as temperature scanning and social distancing are in place.
On Saturday, the country extended a ban on international passenger flights until the end of June. Thailand has recorded a total of 3,025 cases and 56 deaths.
Brazil’s confirmed coronavirus cases rose on Saturday past those of Spain and Italy, outbreak the fourth largest in the world, Reuters reports.
Brazil’s health ministry registered 14,919 new confirmed cases in the prior 24 hours, taking the total to 233,142, behind the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom. Brazil has done just a fraction of the testing seen in those three countries.
The global distinction is likely to pile pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro, who lost his second health minister in a month on Friday as he defies public health experts and calls for widespread use of unproven drugs.
Bolsonaro has been fiercely critical of the orders by many of Brazil’s state governors for strict social isolation and quarantine to combat the spread of the virus, including the closure of schools, shops and restaurants. Bolsonaro argues that the toll on the economy is becoming unbearable and businesses must be allowed to reopen as soon as possible. The government now expects Brazil will post its biggest annual economic contraction this year since records began over a century ago.
Nationwide testing in Brazil still lags far behind European nations. Brazil had processed nearly 338,000 novel coronavirus tests in official labs by the beginning of the week, according to the health ministry. Another 145,000 tests were under analysis or waiting in line. By contrast, Italy and Spain have each run some 1.9 million official diagnostic tests for the virus.
from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Z8tkui
