The total number of coronavirus COVID-19 cases across 187 nations reached 3,902,628 and the death toll stood at 272,286 at 11.45 pm (IST) on Friday (May 8).
With the highest numbers both in positive cases and death toll, the US continues to remain the worst-hit with a total of 1,268,520 cases. It is followed by Spain with 221,447 cases, Italy with 217,185 cases, the UK with 212,626 cases, and Russia with 187,859 cases.
With a massive jump, the US has witnessed the highest death toll across all the nations at 76,101 followed by the UK at 31,315, Italy at 30,201, Spain at 26,070 and France at 25,990.
In the US, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence tested positive with coronavirus on Friday, according to a senior administration official. This is the third known case of a White House staffer testing positive with coronavirus. A day earlier a military aide to President Donald Trump had tested positive. "This morning we had someone on the vice president's staff test positive and so out of an abundance of caution we went back and looked into all the person's contacts most recently,? said the senior administration official as the Vice President left Des Moines in Iowa.
"...That's why we asked some of our staff to deplane. Nobody else was exhibiting any symptoms or having any feeling of sickness. We asked them to go get tested and to go home out of an abundance of caution," the official said. Staff in West Wing are tested regularly but people in Executive Office Building, which is also part of the White House complex, are not tested so frequently, he said. About 10 members of vice-presidential staff are tested daily.
"The person who tested positive was not on the plane and not scheduled to be on the trip," said the official. "That's why we were delayed and taking care of that," the official added. According to the official, the vice president and the president have not had contact with this person recently.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that his government will use "maximum caution" when considering lifting the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Johnson is due to announce plans to ease restrictions in the country on Sunday, which would come into force from Monday, IANS reported.
A spokesman for the leader said he told his Ministers in a cabinet meeting: "We are not going to do anything that risks a second peak. We will advance with maximum caution in order to protect the NHS and to save lives. "We will be guided at every step by the science and the data and we will closely track the impact of any easing of the social distancing measures and will not hesitate to tighten the rules if required." The government is due to re-evaluate the containment measures, which have been in place since March 23, and is likely to extend them for another three weeks.
Spain's army expects there to be two more outbreaks of the new coronavirus, according to an internal report seen by The Associated Press.
The army report predicts two more waves of the epidemic and that Spain will take between a year and a year-and-a-half to return to normality. The document was published by Spanish newspaper ABC on Friday and later confirmed as authentic by the AP.
There will be a second wave of COVID-19 in the autumn or winter the army report said, adding that it will be less serious than the initial outbreak due to higher immunity in the population and better preparations. It said that a possible third wave would be greatly weakened next year if there is a vaccine available.
Italy on Friday became the third country in the world to record 30,000 deaths from the coronavirus, reporting 243 new fatalities compared with a daily tally of 274 the day before. Only the United States and Britain have seen more deaths from the virus. The daily number of new infections fell slightly to 1,327 from 1,401 on Thursday. People registered as currently carrying the illness in Italy fell to 87,961 from 89,624 the day before.
There were 1,168 people in intensive care on Friday against 1,311 on Thursday, maintaining a long-running decline. Of those originally infected, 99,023 were declared recovered against 96,276 a day earlier.
