Brazil’s coronavirus death toll overtakes Spain’s: Live updates

• US President Donald Trump has said the US is ‘terminating’ its relationship with the WHO, saying group hasn’t made coronavirus reforms.

• The WHO and 37 countries have launched the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, an alliance aimed at making coronavirus vaccines, tests, treatments and other technologies available to all countries. 

• Russia has announced that 232 more people have died from the coronavirus in the last 24 hours in a record one-day increase in the country.

• India’s coronavirus death and case tolls have passed China’s, after the country recorded 175 new deaths and 7,466 new cases.

• More than 5.8 million cases of coronavirus have been confirmed around the world, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Some 359,000 people have died, while more than 2.4 million have recovered.

Here are the latest updates:

Saturday, May 30

01:05 GMT – Brazil death toll hits 27,878, surpassing hard-hit Spain

Brazil’s coronavirus deaths has reached 27,878, surpassing the toll of hard-hit Spain and making it the country with the fifth-highest number of fatalities.

The Ministry of Health said Brazil saw 1,124 deaths in 24 hours. It also had a record number of new cases – 26,928 in one day – bringing the total number of infections to 465,166.

As of the end of Friday Spain had recorded 27,121 deaths, with virus fatalities there rapidly slowing. Brazil could soon surpass France, which has seen 28,714 deaths.

“There is no way to foresee” when the outbreak will peak, the Ministry of Health said, and experts say the number of cases in Brazil could be 15 times higher than the confirmed figure because there has been no widespread testing.

00:55 GMT – Merkel rejects Trump invite to attend G7 summit in Washington

German Chancellor Angela Merkel turned down US President Donald Trump’s invitation to attend an envisaged summit of the Group of Seven (G7) in the United States, according to Politico.

“The federal chancellor thanks President Trump for his invitation to the G7 summit at the end of June in Washington. As of today, considering the overall pandemic situation, she cannot agree to her personal participation, to a journey to Washington,” the report quoted German government spokesman Steffen Seibert as saying.

“She will of course continue to monitor the development of the pandemic.”

Trump believes there would be “no greater example of reopening” than holding a G7 summit in the US near the end of June, the White House said on Tuesday.

00:21 GMT – Chile, Peru secure credit lines from IMF

The International Monetary Fund approved a two-year $24bn credit line for Chile as the nation battles the coronavirus pandemic. The move comes a day after the IMF approved $11bn credit line for Peru.

The Flexible Credit Line is a renewable funding mechanism granted to countries with strong economic policy track records, and Chile is only the fifth country to receive one. Along with Peru, Mexico and Colombia currently have FCLs in place.    

Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, said the backstop should help to boost market confidence and Chile intends to treat the credit line as “precautionary and temporary,” and exit the backstop after 24 months.      

Peru likewise sees the program as precautionary and will consider exiting once the crisis has passed and “the insurance provided by an FCL arrangement would no longer be necessary”.

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m Zaheena Rasheed in Male, Maldives. 

You can find all the updates from yesterday, May 29, here. 

 

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies