(Reuters) – European Union countries eager to revive their economies are prepared to bar entry to Americans because the U.S. has failed to control the coronavirus pandemic, the New York Times reported from Brussels on Tuesday, citing draft lists of acceptable travelers.
DEATHS AND INFECTIONS
* More than 9.14 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 473,031 have died, a Reuters tally showed as of 1600 GMT on Tuesday.
* For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread, open https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.
* For a U.S.-focused tracker with state-by-state and county map, open https://tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T in an external browser.
* Eikon users, see MacroVitals (cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?navid=1592404098) for a case tracker and a summary of developments.
EUROPE
* Prime Minister Boris Johnson said pubs, restaurants and hotels could reopen in England early next month, but cautioned people that they would still need to act responsibly.
* England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said he expects significant levels of the coronavirus to be circulating through until next year, warning the battle with the virus will be a long haul.
* The western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia put two municipalities back into lockdown until June 30 after an outbreak at a meatpacking plant.
AMERICAS
* For a second consecutive week, Texas, Arizona and Nevada set records in their outbreaks, and 10 other states from Florida to California were grappling with a surge in infections.
* Four top U.S. public health officials and members of Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force said he has not asked them to slow down testing for the virus.
* Venezuela’s western Zulia state has emerged as a hot spot for the pandemic as poorly supplied hospitals and chronic shortages of water and power make it difficult to prevent the disease from spreading.
ASIA-PACIFIC
* Beijing’s mass testing will soon enter a “fast track”, a senior municipal health official said, suggesting that COVID-19 screening in China’s capital is about to gather pace.
* Around 4,000 recovered COVID-19 patients from a religious group at the centre of South Korea’s largest outbreak will donate plasma for research, an official said, a day after local officials filed a lawsuit against the church.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
* Egypt will from Saturday lift a night-time curfew that had been imposed since March 25, the prime minister’s media adviser said.
* Saudi Arabia is to limit the number of domestic pilgrims attending the haj to around 1,000, after barring Muslims abroad from the rite for the first year in modern times.
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS
* Brazil is likely to sign a contract this week to produce a trial vaccine developed by Oxford University to guard against the novel coronavirus, the country’s interim health minister Eduardo Pazuello said.
* South African drug company Aspen could provide 10 million dexamethasone tablets within a month, Chief Executive Stephen Saad told Reuters.
* Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc said it has received $71 million from the U.S. Department of Defense to scale up production of the company’s devices that are used to administer its experimental COVID-19 vaccine into the skin.
ECONOMIC FALLOUT
* Sales of new U.S. single-family homes increased more than expected in May and business activity contracted moderately this month.
* The German economy will shrink by 6.5% this year, the government’s council of economic advisors said.
* Heightened uncertainty in India has led to a surge in currency in circulation as people hoard cash or park money in accessible deposits to safeguard themselves against salary cuts or job losses.
(Compiled by Linda Pasquini and Devika Syamnath; Editing by Catherine Evans and Maju Samuel)
