Paris (AFP)

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

- Over 585,000 dead -

More than 13.6 million people have contracted the disease and at least 585,750 deaths have been recorded worldwide since the virus appeared in December in China, according to a report stopped Thursday at 19:00 GMT.

Italy has officially crossed the symbolic threshold of 35,000 deaths from Covid-19 while Brazil has announced that it has identified more than two million cases of contamination on its soil. India has crossed the threshold of one million reported cases.

Next come Brazil (76,688 dead), the United Kingdom (45,119), Mexico (36,906) and Italy (35,017).

But as a proportion of the population, excluding micro-states, it is in Belgium that mortality is the highest (845 deaths per million inhabitants), ahead of the United Kingdom (665), Spain (608) and Italy (579).

- New records in the United States -

The United States has broken a new record of daily Covid-19 contaminations, with more than 68,000 new cases registered in 24 hours. At 8:30 p.m. local Thursday, 3,560,364 cases of coronavirus had also been diagnosed in the country since the start of the epidemic.

- Moscow pointed out -

In the midst of the vaccine race, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada accused Russian intelligence services of being behind attacks by hackers to steal research into a vaccine against the coronavirus, which that the Kremlin strongly denied.

- Third call for help from the United Nations -

The UN is seeking an additional $ 3.6 billion to finance its global humanitarian response to the pandemic and has warned developed countries against "the cost of inaction" against the virus in poor countries.

"So far, the reaction of rich countries (...) to the situation in other countries has been very insufficient," deplores Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. "The huge problems the world faces can be managed with relatively little money and a lot of imagination."

- "World E-pilgrimage" to Lourdes -

To compensate for the cancellation of pilgrimages, the Christian sanctuary of Lourdes organized the first virtual world pilgrimage, baptized "Lourdes United". Celebrations and prayers celebrated in five languages ​​were celebrated on Catholic television throughout the world on this anniversary of the last appearance of the Virgin to Bernadette Soubirous.

- Germany: local confinements authorized -

Faced with the risk of a second wave of the virus, Germany, relatively untouched so far, will authorize reinforced containment measures at the local level. With this new arsenal, the authorities will be able to introduce "exit bans" in limited geographic areas.

In England, the reconfiguration of the city of Leicester will be partially eased.

- The Olympic movement in crisis -

With the pandemic, athletes and the Olympic movement are facing the worst crisis they have faced since the boycotts of the 1980s, according to Richard Pound, veteran member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

According to the Canadian lawyer, former IOC vice-president and former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to the postponement to 2021 of the Tokyo Games, originally scheduled for this summer, causes upheaval for broadcasters, officials and athletes.

- Postponement of the launch of the James Webb space telescope -

As a consequence of the pandemic, the launch of the large James Webb space telescope at 10 billion dollars by an Ariane 5 rocket is again postponed, to October 31, 2021 instead of March.

burs-rap-jah / mp

© 2020 AFP