Dear Reader:

Currently on the worldometer website, there are almost 430,00o global Covid-19 deaths, close to 3.4 million active cases of which 98% are in mild condition and 2% are in serious or critical condition. Of the over 4.4 million closed cases, 90% recovered/ discharged and 10% died.

The US accounts for about 117 thousands of the 430 thousands global deaths (55 deaths per million people). Brazil accounts for about 42 thousands of the 430 thousands global deaths (197 deaths per million), and the UK accounts for 42 thousand deaths of the 430 thousands global deaths (611 deaths per million).

As far as numbers of deaths within a population of a million people, these are the countries with most to least: San Marino (1,238), Belgium (833), Spain (580), Italy (566), Sweden (483), France (450). All other countries report lesser numbers.

* San Marino is a very small country completely surrounded by Italy, an enclave.

A few Covid-19 news from around the world:

* California‘s surge in the number of Covid-19 cases is a result of increased testing (60-80 thousand testing a day), not to the ongoing re-opening of businesses (Los Angeles Times).

* An area of the Chinese capital Beijing has been put under strict lockdown measures after the city’s first coronavirus cases in more than 50 days (BBC).

* The number of Covid-19 cases in India’s worst affected city, Mumbai, has surpassed Wuhan in China, where the virus first appeared. Hospitals in the country are struggling, people are dying without getting the treatment they need (BBC).

* Surfers have returned to the beaches in Rio and this week in Sao Paulo, shops and malls reopened- but this is the confusing bit- quarantine has been extended in Sao Paulo until the end of the month. Nobody knows where this pandemic is heading in Brazil. With such woeful levels of testing it’s hard to get a true picture of the extent of the virus here.

* International flights to and from Greek‘s main airports will resume on June 15, after a nearly three-month lockdown. Accounting for about 20% of Greece economic output, tourism is vital for Greece. The country will conduct coronavirus tests on all visitors arriving from airports deemed high-risk by the European Union’s aviation safety agency. Visitors will be quarntined up to 14 days, depending on the test result (The Sun)

* Turkey reopened restaurants, cafes, gyms, parks, beaches and museums on June 1 and eased stay-at-home orders for senior citizens and minors earlier this week. People crowded sea fronts and parks in the first weekend after the relaxation, often without masks or flouting social distancing (The Sun).

* Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands have signed a contract with AstraZeneca to supply European citizens with a vaccine against the coronavirus, Italy’s health minister said on Saturday. The contract is for 400 million doses of the vaccine, which was developed with the University of Oxford and whose experimentation phase is already advanced and expected to end in autumn (The Sun).

anita