Paris (AFP)

New assessments, new measures, highlights: an update on the latest developments in the Covid-19 pandemic.

- 360,000 reconfigured Germans -

Germany announced Tuesday for the first time a local reconfiguration after the appearance of an outbreak of contamination in a large slaughterhouse in the west of the country where more than 1,550 cases of infections have been detected.

The reconfiguration of the entire canton of Gütersloh, which has around 360,000 inhabitants in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia, will result in the strict limitation of contacts between people, the closure of bars, cinemas, museums and the prohibition of leisure activities in closed spaces.

- "Second wave" in South Korea -

South Korea admitted on Tuesday that it has been fighting since "mid-May" against a "second wave" of coronavirus, with between 35 and 50 new cases recorded every day, mainly in Seoul and its surroundings, an area which concentrates half of the population of the country.

Most of the cases registered in the past three weeks have, however, been imported. Of the 46 new cases listed on Tuesday, 30 were passengers arriving from abroad.

- 1,000 pilgrims in Mecca -

Saudi Arabia will allow a thousand people living on its territory to make the great pilgrimage to Mecca at the end of July, the Minister of Hajj announced Tuesday after having decided to drastically limit the number of faithful this year due to the pandemic.

- Over 120,000 dead in the United States -

The pandemic has killed at least 472,173 people worldwide since China officially reported the disease in December, according to reports by AFP from official sources at 11:00 GMT on Tuesday.

The United States is the most affected country, with at least 120,402 deaths for 2.31 million cases registered, followed by Brazil (51,271 deaths), the United Kingdom (42,647), Italy (34,657) and France (29,663).

- Heavy fall in the auto market -

Hard hit by the health crisis, the European car market should record in 2020 a historic fall of 25% with new car registrations which should pass from 12.8 million units in 2019 to 9.6 million this year, announced the Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA), calling on states to support sales to limit social disruption.

- European summit -

After a virtual summit on June 19, an extraordinary summit bringing together the leaders of the 27 countries of the European Union will take place on July 17 and 18 to try to find an agreement on the massive recovery plan for the European economy. It will be the first physical summit since March.

- Disney reopens its parks in Tokyo -

After that of Shanghai in May, Disneyland and DisneySea parks in Tokyo will reopen on July 1. The Anaheim (California) and Disneyland Paris parks are due to reopen in mid-July.

The two Disney parks in Tokyo are among the most popular tourist destinations in Japan, welcoming more than 30 million visitors each year.

burs-kd / cds / lch

© 2020 AFP