World News in Brief: July 11

The Thai Immigration Bureau said on Friday (July 10) that it had dispatched hundreds of officers to patrol the porous areas bordering Myanmar for fear of illegal migrants crossing to Thailand and spreading COVID-19. Thai army troops, police and administrative officers of the border town of Mae Sot, in the northern province of Tak province, were conducting inspections along jungles and the Mekong River, the two main areas dividing Thailand and Myanmar.

* Chinese health authority said Saturday (July 11) that it received reports of two new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland Friday, both imported. No new suspected cases or deaths related to the disease were reported Friday, according to the National Health Commission. As of Friday, the overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 83,587 including 330 patients who were still being treated, with three in severe conditions.

* The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday reported 3,106,931 cases of new coronavirus, an increase of 59,260 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 799 to 132,855.

* Brazil registered 45,048 additional cases of the novel coronavirus over the last 24 hours and 1,214 new deaths, the health ministry said on Friday. The nation has now registered 1,800,827 total confirmed cases and 70,398 deaths attributable to the virus.

* Mexico's health ministry on Friday reported 6,891 new confirmed coronavirus infections and 665 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 289,174 cases and 34,191 deaths. The government has said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.

* France on Friday became the sixth country to report a total coronavirus death toll of more than 30,000, with the number of new confirmed cases above 600 for the third day in a row. The health ministry said in a statement that 25 people had died from coronavirus infection in the past 24 hours, boosting the cumulative total since early March to 30,004.

* Republic of Korea reported 35 more COVID-19 cases as of Saturday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 13,373. The daily caseload fell below 40 in 15 days, but it grew in double figures amid the continued small cluster infections and imported cases. Of the new cases, 15 were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 1,806. It continued to increase in double digits for 16 straight days.

* The total number of COVID-19 cases surpassed the 800,000-mark in India on Saturday, reaching 820,916, even as the total deaths stood at 22,123, said the data released by the federal health ministry a short while ago. According to the ministry data, 519 new deaths due to COVID-19 besides fresh 27,114 positive cases were reported during the past 24 hours across the country, taking the number of deaths to 22,123 and total cases to 820,916. This is said to be the highest single day spike in terms of new COVID-19 cases in the country so far.

* The COVID-19 cases in Indonesia rose by 1,671 within one day to 74,018, with the death toll adding by 66 to 3,535, Achmad Yurianto, a Health Ministry official, said at a press conference here on Saturday. According to him, 1,190 more people had been discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 34,719.

* Russia and China vetoed a last-ditch attempt by Western members of the U.N. Security Council to extend approval - which expires on Friday - for humanitarian aid to be delivered across two border crossings into Syria from Turkey for the next six months. The United Nations says millions of Syrian civilians in the country's northwest depend on the humanitarian aid delivered from Turkey, describing it as a "lifeline." The remaining 13 council members voted in favor of the resolution on Friday.

* Tropical Storm Fay on Friday made landfall near Atlantic city, New Jersey, with heavy rainfall and gusty winds, the U.S National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. The storm was located about 10 miles (15 kilometers) north-northeast of Atlantic City, with maximum sustained winds of 50 miles per hour (85 kph), the Miami-based weather forecaster said.

* British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell employers next week to start ordering staff back into their places of work, as long as it is safe to do so, in order to stem the coronavirus hit to the economy, the Daily Mail said. Johnson has told top civil servants to set an example by starting to return staff to their desks and he has also asked companies including Goldman Sachs to get more employees back after working from home, the newspaper said. Britain's economy shrank by 25% over March and April as the coronavirus pandemic escalated and the government ordered entire sectors to shut down.

* The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 378 to 198,556, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Saturday. The reported death toll rose by six to 9,060, the tally showed.

* Australia's second most-populous state reported one of its highest daily increases in coronavirus infections on Saturday and warned the numbers would get worse before they got better as its capital city began its first weekend of a six-week lockdown. The state of Victoria logged 216 new cases, down from a record 288 the previous day but still one of the biggest daily increases of any part of the country.

* The first prayers will be held in Turkey's Hagia Sophia on July 24, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, after declaring the ancient monument was once again a mosque following a court ruling revoking its status as a museum.

* Bulgaria and Croatia have been accepted into ERM-2 mechanism, a mandatory stage for joining the euro and beginning the currency bloc's first expansion in half a decade, the European Central Bank said on Friday. Following the approval from euro zone finance ministers and ECB officials, the two eastern European nations will also join the bloc's banking union, putting their biggest lenders under the ECB's supervision from Oct. 1, the bank said in a statement.

Xinhua,Reuters