N.Korea's Covid toll at 42; Shanghai to gradually open businesses: Top updates
North Korea on Sunday reported 15 more Covid-19 deaths, taking the toll to 42. Authorities are currently mobilising more than a million health and other workers to try to suppress the outbreak.
The total number of Covid-19 cases across the globe is nearing 521 million including over 6.2 million deaths, 475.3 million recoveries and over 39 million active cases, according to figures shown by worldometers.
In its latest assessment of the pandemic on May 10, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that Covid-19 cases reported worldwide have continued to fall except in the Americas and Africa.
However, on May 12, North Korea said that it found its first Covid-19 patients since the onset of the pandemic. A report by news agency AP said that the outbreak has triggered a humanitarian crisis in the country since most of the population is believed to be unvaccinated.
In Africa, the total number of cases has exceeded 11.54 million and deaths are over 252,000. On the other hand, in China, 226 locally transmitted cases were seen in the last 24 hours, of which 166 were in Shanghai.
Here are the latest updates:
> North Korea on Sunday reported 15 more Covid-19 deaths, taking the toll to 42. Authorities are currently mobilising more than a million health and other workers to try to suppress the outbreak. Several citizens have tested positive for the Omicron variant.
> Experts have warned that North Korea might see a huge number of deaths if it doesn’t immediately receive outside shipments of vaccines, medicines and other medical supplies.
> From Monday, Shanghai will gradually begin reopening businesses including shopping malls and hair salons, weeks after the Chinese city had been placed under a strict lockdown. Shanghai's vice mayor Chen Tong said on Sunday that shopping malls, department stores, and supermarkets will begin resuming in-store operations and allow customers to shop in "an orderly way", while hair salons and vegetable markets will reopen with limited capacity, news agency Reuters reported.
> South Africa is seeing a fresh surge in infections driven by two Omicron sub-variants- BA.4 and BA.5. Professor Marta Nunes from the Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Analytics at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital told AP on Saturday that new sub-variants appear to be able to infect people who have immunity from earlier Covid infection and vaccination but they cause generally a mild disease.
> India on Sunday saw a dip in its daily Covid-19 tally after 2,487 cases were registered in the last 24 hours, pushing the caseload to over 43.12 million. The active cases in the country have come down to 17,692 while the toll has climbed to 524,214 with 13 fresh deaths.
(With inputs from Reuters, AP)