schema:articleBody
| - Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis. The coronavirus has killed 311,959 people worldwide since it surfaced in China late last year, according to an AFP tally at 1100 GMT on Sunday based on official sources. There have been at least 4,647,986 officially recorded cases in 196 countries and territories. The United States has recorded the most deaths at 88,754. It is followed by Britain with 34,466, Italy with 31,763, Spain with 27,650, and France with 27,625. German football champions Bayern Munich prepare to play their first match in more than two months as the Bundesliga over the weekend becomes the first top European league to resume since lockdown. Bayern restart their charge for an eighth straight title, holding a one-point lead at the top of the table, with a trip to the German capital to play Union Berlin, but as with all the matches, they will play in a vacant, echoing stadium. In Britain, Premier League clubs are hoping for a return to socially distanced training on Tuesday once a protocol of safety measures has been signed off at a meeting on Monday. La Liga in Spain tell clubs they will be able to increase training to involve groups of up to 10 players as of Monday. And the Spanish government announces protocol allowing training to be expanded by all clubs, even those in areas further behind in the country's de-escalation programme, which means teams like Real Madrid, Barcelona and Aletico Madrid will be able to train in groups of 10. Latin America and the Caribbean have recorded more than 500,000 infections, according to an AFP tally based on official reports, with almost half of those recorded in Brazil. Former US President Barack Obama criticises the response to the pandemic, in what is widely regarded as a rare public rebuke of his successor Donald Trump. "More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they're doing," Obama tells graduates at a virtual college commencement ceremony. Many leaders today "aren't even pretending to be in charge," he says. A top Chinese medical official says the country faces a potential second wave due to a lack of immunity among its population. "We are facing (a) big challenge," Zhong Nanshan, the public face of the government's response to the pandemic, tells CNN. "It's not better than the foreign countries I think at the moment." A 57-year-old hospital worker with underlying diabetes and high blood pressure is the first death of a patient suffering from the virus in Madagascar, coming nearly two months after COVID-19 was first detected in the country. The growth of new cases in Russia is stabilising, a top health official says, as the daily tally falls under 10,000 for the third time this week. burs-eab/dl
|