People enjoy a night out on Pedregalejo Beach in Malaga on May 23, 2020. (JORGE GUERRERO / AFP)
MADRID / STERLING / VATICAN CITY / ROME / PARIS / BERLIN / LISBON / THE HAGUE / MEXICO CITY / LUSAKA / BUENOS AIRES - Spain will reopen its borders to tourists in July and its top soccer division will kick off again in June, the Prime Minister said on Saturday, marking another phase in the easing of one of the world’s strictest lockdowns.
Trump went on his first golf outing since the White House declared a national emergency over the coronavirus in March, visiting his club in the Washington suburbs in a purposeful display of normalcy
Pedro Sanchez’s dual announcements coincided with calls for his resignation over the lockdown’s impact on the economy from the far-right Vox party, which called protests in cities across Spain drawing thousands of horn-blaring cars and motorbikes.
“From July, foreign tourism will resume in safe conditions. We will guarantee tourists will not take any risks and will not bring us any risks,” Sanchez told a televised news conference, without giving further details.
Foreign visitors contribute around an eighth of Spain’s economic output and the government curbs - taken to contain one of Europe’s severest coronavirus outbreaks - shuttered everything from hotels, bars and restaurants to beaches and leisure parks just as its tourism season got under way.
Spain’s overnight death toll from the coronavirus rose by 48 on Saturday to a total of 28,678, the seventh straight day that the fatality rate has been less than 100, while the total number of cases rose to 235,290.
Close to a million jobs were lost in March alone when the lockdown began and the Bank of Spain has forecast the economy will contract by up to 12 percent this year.
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Italy
The Vatican Museums will reopen on June 1, the Vatican said on Saturday, ending a closure caused by the coronavirus lockdown that has drained the Holy See’s coffers.
A statement said the Museums, which house some of the world’s greatest Renaissance masterpieces as well as ancient Roman and Egyptian artefacts, can be visited from the beginning of June, though only by making on-line reservations in order to control the number of people.
Similar conditions will apply to visitors to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome.
Italian museums began reopening on May 18 as part of a staged easing of lockdown measures in the country where nearly 33,000 people have died from the virus.
Italy recorded 119 new deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic on Saturday against 130 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the daily tally of new cases rose marginally to 669 from 652 on Friday.
The total death toll since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21 now stands at 32,735, the agency said, the third highest in the world after those of the United States and Britain.
The Civil Protection Agency said the total number of confirmed cases in Italy since the start of its outbreak now amounts to 229,327, the sixth highest global tally behind those of the United States, Russia, Spain, Britain and Brazil.
People registered as currently carrying the illness dipped to 57,752 on Saturday from 59,322 the day before.
There were 572 people in intensive care on Saturday, down from 595 on Friday, maintaining a long-running decline. Of those originally infected, 138,840 were declared recovered against 136,720 a day earlier.
The agency said 2.164 million people had been tested for the virus as of Saturday, against 2.122 million on Friday, out of a population of around 60 million.
People ride bicycles at Via del Corso, central Rome on May 23, 2020 as the country eases its lockdown after over two months, aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 infection, caused by the novel coronavirus. (ALBERTO PIZZOLI / AFP)
Russia
Russia on Sunday reported 153 coronavirus deaths over the previous 24 hours, the epidemic’s highest daily toll, raising total fatalities to 3,541, the country’s coronavirus crisis response centre said
It also said 8,599 new cases had been documented, fewer than on the previous day, pushing the nationwide tally of infections to 344,481.
France
Coronavirus infection rates in France have slowed further and the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital and intensive care continued to fall, health ministry figures showed, a sign that social distancing is keeping contagion in check for now.
Nearly two weeks after lockdown ended, health ministry data on Saturday showed the number of confirmed cases rose by 250 to 144,806 over 24 hours, an increase of 0.2 percent, below the average 0.3 percent increase of the past seven days and well below the average 0.8 percent increase seen in the last week of lockdown.
Italy and Spain have also reported confirmed cases going up by 0.3 percent on average in the past seven days.
The number of people in hospital with coronavirus in France fell by 205 to 17,178 on Saturday, continuing a gradual decline that has continued for more than five weeks since a high of 32,292 on April 14. The number of people in intensive care fell by 36 or 2.1 percent to 1,665, a slide that has been uninterrupted for six weeks since the April 8 peak at 7,148.
Germany
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 431 to 178,281, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Sunday.
The reported death toll rose by 31 to 8,247, the tally showed.
Portugal
Portugal on Friday reported 288 new cases of coronavirus infection in the last 24 hours, raising the tally to 30,200 cases, health authorities confirmed.
A further 12 people had died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, in the 24-hour period, taking the death toll to 1,289 in Portugal.
Netherlands
The number of people who tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the Netherlands exceeded 45,000, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) announced on Saturday.
Since Friday 176 people tested positive to COVID-19, raising the total infections to 45,064. "The actual number of infections with the novel coronavirus is higher than the number mentioned here, because not everyone who may be infected is tested for the virus," the RIVM stated.
The number of deaths rose by 23 to 5,811, while the number of people who are or were admitted to hospital increased by 10 to 11,659.
US
US President Donald Trump on Saturday went on his first golf outing since the White House declared a national emergency over the coronavirus in March, visiting his club in the Washington suburbs in a purposeful display of normalcy.
It was his first time at a golf property since March 8, when he visited his club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
That was the same weekend when he met at his Mar-a-Lago retreat with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose press secretary later tested positive for the virus. Some White House staffers who had been in contact with the press aide went into quarantine afterward but none tested positive.
On March 13, Trump issued a proclamation declaring the pandemic a "national emergency."
The US diagnosed its first cases of the coronavirus in Washington state on Jan. 20.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Saturday reported 1,595,885 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 24,268 cases from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 1,852 to 96,002.
The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by the new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on May 22, compared with its count a day earlier.
The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.
Mexico
Mexican health authorities registered 3,329 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the country and 190 new deaths, a health official said on Saturday, bringing the total number to 65,856 cases and 7,179 deaths.
Argentina
Argentina extended until June 7 a mandatory lockdown in Buenos Aires on Saturday and tightened some movement restrictions, after a steady increase in the city’s confirmed coronavirus cases in recent days.
Officials will tighten traffic controls between the capital and Buenos Aires province, the area with the second highest concentration of cases, President Alberto Fernandez said in a televised press conference.
Commercial activity in some of the city’s more populated neighborhoods and access to public transportation will also be rolled back. Some businesses had been allowed to reopen under a previous lockdown extension.
The lockdown, due to expire on Sunday, has been in place since March 20, though officials have relaxed restrictions in some areas of the country. Argentina has a commercial flight ban until Sept 1, one of the world’s strictest travel measures during the pandemic.
The country recorded 704 new infections on Saturday, one of the highest single-day increases since the pandemic began. The country has 11,353 cases, mostly in Buenos Aires, where the city’s low-income neighborhoods have been particularly hard hit, government data showed. The death toll is at 445.
Members of SOS Funeral wearing personal protective equipments carry a coffin at the Sao Francisco cemetery, on May 22 2020 in Manaus, Brazil. (ANDRE COELHO / GETTY IMAGES VIA BLOOMBERG)
Brazil
Brazil’s coronavirus curve steepened further a day after it overtook Russia to become the country with the second-highest number of cases.
The Latin American nation added 16,508 cases Saturday and said the death toll rose by 965.
Brazil now has 347,398 confirmed cases, trailing only the US globally, from 330,890 on Friday. Still, its death toll of 22,013, up from 21,048 in the previous 24 hours, trails the US and some of the most infected European countries, including the UK and Spain.
As the country shattered records and the contamination curve fails to flatten, President Jair Bolsonaro remains adamant about his crusade to reopen commerce and the economy, and to tout the malaria and lupus drug chloroquine even though there isn’t sufficient scientific proof to back it up for Covid-19. His stance has proved too much -- two health ministers have resigned amid the pandemic. The ministry is currently being run provisionally by an army general.
READ MORE: Brazil clears way for use of chloroquine to treat COVID-19
Zambia
Zambia’s information minister Dora Siliya said on Saturday she had tested positive for the coronavirus but was asymptomatic and had gone into self-isolation.
“Even after taking all precautions ... yesterday I did test positive for COVID-19,” she said in a video posted on WhatsApp and Twitter, calling on citizens to stay calm and observe hygiene and social distancing measures.
