Covid-19 - Global death toll passes 70,000

Global death toll passes 70,000. The number of known cases around the world nears 1.3 million as the global number confirmed to have died hits 70,798, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. In all, 271,013 people are confirmed to have recovered after contracting the virus.

More than 5,000 have died in UK hospitals. According to the country’s Department of Health and Social Care, 5,373 people who had tested positive for coronavirus have now died in UK hospitals. A total of 208,837 people have been tested for the virus, of which 51,608 tested positive, officials say.

US prepares for “peak death week”. The accelerating American death toll closes the gap with Italy and Spain, prompting local officials to prepare the public for a high death toll.

The pandemic is the biggest test the bloc has faced in its history, Angela Merkel says. “Everyone is just as affected as the other, and therefore, it is in everyone’s interest, and it is in Germany’s interest for Europe to emerge strong from this test.”

Wearing masks in public could soon be mandatory in Germany.The proposal is contained in a draft list of measures local officials think should allow life to return to normal. The proposals reportedly include an obligation to wear masks in public, limits on public gatherings and the rapid tracing of infection chains.

Hospitalised UK prime minister “in good spirits”. Boris Johnson, who was taken into hospital on Sunday, thanks NHS staff.

A mass antibody test is at least a month away, a scientific adviser to the UK government warns. Prof Sir John Bell, from Oxford University, who advises the government on life sciences, says the search is on for an antibody test that will prove effective, but those tested so far had failed.

Italy’s death toll accelerates again. The country had recorded the fewest deaths in any day for two weeks but Monday’s figures show the numbers accelerating again, with a further 636 new deaths; 111 more than the number registered on Sunday. That brings the toll in Italy to 16,523.

Hopes rise that Greece is “flattening the curve”. The latest figures released by health authorities in Greece offer a glimmer of hope.

The UK’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, says planning for the end of the lockdown is taking place, though it is too early to say when it could happen. And he warns: “The risk right now is if we take our focus off the strategy, which is beginning to work, we won’t get through this peak as soon as we want to.”