Coronavirus live news: markets fall over fears of long US recovery as Brazil cases top 800,000

Mexico’s health ministry reported 4,790 new confirmed coronavirus infections along with 587 additional fatalities on Thursday, bringing the total in the country to 133,974 cases and 15,944 deaths.

The government has said the real number of infected people is significantly higher than the official count.

Brazil reported a total of 802,828 confirmed cases of coronavirus on Thursday, with 30,412 new infections in the last 24 hours in the world’s second worst outbreak after the United States.

With another 1,239 fatalities, the death toll in Brazil has reached 40,919, the health ministry said, the world’s third highest after the United States and the UK.

Stocks fell sharply Thursday on Wall Street as coronavirus cases in the US increased again, deflating recent optimism for a quick economic recovery and raising more doubts about how long the market’s scorching comeback can last, AP reports.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank more than 1,800 points, almost 7%, and the S&P 500 dropped 5.9%, its worst day since mid-March, when stocks went through repeated harrowing falls as the virus lockdowns began. The S&P 500 rallied 44.5% between late March and Monday, erasing most of its losses tied to the pandemic.

The selling comes as coronavirus cases rise in the US, with some of the increase likely tied to the reopening of businesses and the lifting of stay-at-home orders. Cases are climbing in nearly half the states, according to an Associated Press analysis, a worrying trend that could intensify as people return to work and venture out during the summer.

Investor optimism for a speedy recovery was also dimmed by the Federal Reserve, which warned Wednesday that the road to recovery from the worst downturn in decades would be long and vowed to keep rates low for the foreseeable future.

Those factors, along with the recent run-up in stock prices, set the stage for the wave of selling Thursday.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

I’m Helen Sullivan and I’ll be taking you through the latest news from around the world for the next few hours. Please do get in touch with questions, comments, news and tips on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.

Stocks fell sharply Thursday on Wall Street as coronavirus cases in the US increased again, deflating recent optimism for a quick economic recovery and raising more doubts about how long the market’s scorching comeback can last. The DOW Jones Industrial Average saw its worst day in weeks, closing down almost 7%.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell spoke of second wave fears, warning, “It could hurt the recovery, even if you don’t have a national level pandemic. Just a series of local ones, of local spikes, could have the effect of undermining people’s confidence in travelling, in restaurants and in entertainment,” he said. “It would not be a positive development.”

Powell said US unemployment could remain at levels close to the worst of the GFC at the end of the year, and that a second outbreak could mean that figure was optimistic.

• Global cases near 7.5 million. There are currently 7,449,476 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 418,846 deaths.
• Brazil reported a total of 802,828 confirmed cases of coronavirus on Thursday, with 30,412 new infections in the last 24 hours in the world’s second worst outbreak after the United States.With another 1,239 fatalities, the death toll in Brazil has reached 40,919, the health ministry said, the world’s third highest after the United States and the UK.
• Brazilian officials have announced an agreement with China’s Sinovac Biotech to produce its coronavirus vaccine in Sao Paulo, where tests involving 9,000 volunteers are to begin next month.
• More than a third of employees in some towns in Britain have been furloughed due to coronavirus, according to figures that also reveal the government’s job retention scheme has now cost almost £20bn.
• British Airways plans to sell some of its multi-million-pound art collection in an effort to help it through the pandemic. The collection includes pieces by Damien Hirst, Bridget Riley and Peter Doig with one work believed to have been valued at more than £1 million.It is understood at least 10 pieces have been identified for sale by the airline.
• In Australia, only one of the six commissioners on Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Covid-19 commission has volunteered to release their conflicts of interest, prompting calls for greater transparency from the publicly funded body. The Australian government has refused to release the conflict-of-interest declarations for members of its National Covid-19 Coordination Commission (NCCC), a prominent advisory body shaping non-health aspects of the Covid-19 strategy.
• Almost half of asymptomatic coronavirus carriers detected in Bahrain were found to pose a risk of spreading the virus to others, according to research by the country’s coronavirus taskforce.
• Deaths from Covid-19 in Italy climbed by 53 on Thursday against 71 the day before, Reuters reports, citing the country’s civil protection agency, pushing the total to death toll from the outbreak to 34,167.
• European Union officials and experts have said that Europe could face a surge of coronavirus infections in coming weeks as a result of the mass anti-racism protests that have spread across the continent.
• 10 countries account for nearly 75% of new cases – WHO. Nearly three-quarters of new cases of coronavirus are coming from 10 countries, mostly concentrated in the Americas and south Asia, the director general of the World Health Organization has said.Speaking at the UN health agency’s member state briefing on Thursday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the global situation was deteriorating, even as Europe appeared to be over the worst of the outbreak.