Covid-19 - UK prime minister in intensive care

Coronavirus news: Boris Johnson in intensive care as confirmed cases in Africa pass 10,000
UK foreign secretary to lead country; Japan declares state of emergency; China reports no deaths from Covid-19.

The UK prime minister remains in intensive care. The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, who is running the UK government while Boris Johnson receives treatment in hospital for coronavirus, says he is confident the prime minister will recover.

Official global death toll passes 78,000. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, at least 78,269 people have now died worldwide, while at least 1,381,014 have been infected. Due to suspected under-reporting, these figures are likely to be lower than the true statistics.

More than 55,000 have now tested positive in the UK. According to the latest official figures, 213,181 people in the UK have been tested and 55,242 have been confirmed as having contracted the virus. Of those hospitalised with Covid-19, 6,159 have died.

Africa, the world’s second-largest continent, now has at least 10,000 cases – and experts believe the true scale of the outbreak is much greater. More than 1,700 of the cases are in South Africa, which has been rolling out an aggressive testing campaign.

Turkey has world’s fastest rising infection rate. The number is increasing by more than 3,000 a day, reaching 30,217 since the first case was confirmed four weeks ago. Reported fatalities remain much lower than other badly hit countries, at 649.

The death toll in Italy continues to rise. The country reported 604 more deaths, though it marked the lowest day-to-day increase in new infections since introducing quarantine measures. New cases rose 0.9% to 880.

The US is still obstructing medical supply shipment. Justin Trudeau says Canada still has more work to do to persuade Washington to ensure supplies flow freely, after it emerged Donald Trump had blocked a shipment of masks to Ontario.

The equivalent to 195m jobs are forecast to be lost in working hours as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, according to the International Labour Organisation, which forecasts the global downturn to be far more damaging than the 2009 crash.

The WHO held off recommending face mask use. Experts say that, despite evidence suggesting widespread use of masks could help reduce the virus’ spread, they are insufficient on their own, despite many places making them mandatory.