BEIJING, April 8 (Xinhua) -- The world is now in a battle against COVID-19, a disease caused by a previously unknown coronavirus that has spread to over 200 countries and regions.
The following are the updates on the contagious disease.
TRIPOLI -- The Higher Committee to Combat the Corona Epidemic of Libya's eastern-based government on Tuesday announced the first COVID-19 case in eastern Libya.
In a press conference in the eastern city Benghazi, the Committee said the patient is a 55-year-old man who came to Libya from Turkey 20 days ago.
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WASHINGTON -- Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday that he doesn't see a quick rebound in the U.S. economy following the COVID-19 outbreak.
"I don't see the economy returning to a more normal state until there's much greater confidence both among average people and at the level of governors and mayors that opening up the economy won't restart the crisis," he told a webinar hosted by the Washington-based think tank Brookings Institution.
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HANOI -- Vietnam's Ministry of Health on Wednesday morning confirmed two more COVID-19 cases, bringing the total in the country to 251.
The two new cases, both Vietnamese, include a male in the northern Ha Nam province and a female in the capital city of Hanoi who was reportedly in close contact with an earlier confirmed case.
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MEXICO CITY -- Latin American countries are urging, and sometimes mandating, people to use face masks to contain the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, even as global experts debate its efficacy in warding off infection.
In Chile, where 5,116 people have tested positive for COVID-19, and 43 have died from the disease, the government has made it mandatory to use a face mask on all public transit and paid private transportation.
In Ecuador, the Emergency Operations Committee (COE) decided to make face masks obligatory in public spaces, according to Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo.
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LONDON -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is spending a second night in intensive care in hospital, where he is being treated for COVID-19, and he is in "stable" condition, a Downing Street spokesman said on Tuesday night.
The prime minister was moved to intensive care at St Thomas' Hospital in London on Monday night following a worsening of symptoms. He has received oxygen treatment but has not required a ventilator so far.
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WUHAN -- No new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were reported Tuesday in central China's Hubei Province, the provincial health commission said Wednesday.
One death was reported on Tuesday.
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GENEVA -- A total of 72,776 people had died of COVID-19 globally as the number of infections surged to 1,282,931 on Tuesday, according to the latest figures showed by the situation dashboard of the World Health Organization (WHO).
According to the WHO dashboard, updated at 10:00 CET Tuesday, Europe has a total of 686,338 COVID-19 cases, and there are 384,242 reported confirmed cases in Americas.
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NEW YORK -- The U.S. state of New York lost 731 lives to COVID-19 from Monday to Tuesday, bringing the state's death toll to 5,489 while marking the deadliest 24 hours yet since the pandemic took hold here, said Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday.
"Behind every one of those numbers is an individual, is a family, is a mother, is a father, is a sister, is a brother. So a lot of pain again today for many New Yorkers and they're in our thoughts and prayers," said Cuomo at his daily briefing on coronavirus.
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BRASILIA -- Brazil on Tuesday reported the total number of COVID-19 cases has risen to 13,717, with 667 deaths, for a mortality rate of 4.9 percent.
According to the Health Ministry, 1,661 new cases of infection have been reported in the country in the past 24 hours, and 114 patients died.
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BRUSSELS -- A team of European doctors and nurses from Romania and Norway is being dispatched to Milan and Bergamo to help Italian medical staff battle the coronavirus pandemic, the European Union (EU) said Tuesday in a statement.
According to the statement, the medical team is deployed through the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism. Austria has also offered over 3,000 liters of disinfectant to Italy via the Mechanism.
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CAIRO -- The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed nearly 4,000 lives out of the over 60,000 infected cases in Iran, while more states in the Middle East started to require wearing face masks to curb the spread of the pandemic.
The death toll of the virus in Iran rose by 133 to 3,872 on Tuesday, Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education said, adding the confirmed cases went up by 2,089 to 62,589.
