The Latest: Russia's coronavirus cases surpass 500,000

MOSCOW — Russia’s coronavirus caseload surpassed 500,000 on Thursday, after health officials reported 8,779 new infections.

The nation’s total currently stands at 502,436 confirmed cases, including 6,532 deaths.

Experts both in Russia and abroad expressed doubts about the country’s remarkably low pandemic death toll, with some alleging that numbers were manipulated for political reasons. The Russian government repeatedly denied the allegations.

Despite recording almost 9,000 new cases daily for the past month, Russian authorities have started easing lockdown restrictions in many regions — including Moscow, which accounts for about 40% of all virus cases and almost half of officially reported deaths.

This week the Moscow mayor lifted the stay-at-home order in place since late March, allowing residents to travel freely around the city, and gave a green light for a wide range of businesses — such as beauty parlors, restaurants and museums — to reopen in the next two weeks.

Kremlin critics condemn the reopening as premature and link them to the vote on the constitutional reform that would allow President Vladimir Putin to stay in power until 2036, scheduled for July 1.

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HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— ‘Ticking time bomb:’ Lack of beds slows Delhi’s virus fight

— Resurgence of virus threatens South Korea’s success story

— Homes for disabled hit hard by COVID, faced past violations

— Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum says the capital will embark on a large-scale coronavirus testing as the centerpiece of its plan to reopen its economy. That is diverging from the strategy of President Andres Manuel López Obrador’s federal administration, which has shunned widespread testing as a waste of resources.

— A scientist whose modelling helped set Britain’s coronavirus strategy says the country’s death toll could have been cut in half if lockdown had been introduced a week earlier. Britain has the world’s second-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths at more than 41,000.

— A senior European Union official is demanding that tech firms like Google and Facebook provide detailed monthly reports on how they’re tackling fake news linked to the coronavirus. The EU says that a lot of disinformation targeting Europe is coming from China and Russia.

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Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING TODAY:

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey has restarted international flights for the first time since planes were grounded on March 28 to stem the coronavirus pandemic.

A plane belonging to Anadolu Jet, a subsidiary of Turkish Airlines, left Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport for London at 08:40 a.m. Thursday. It was followed by flights to Amsterdam and Dusseldorf, Germany. Meanwhile, a Turkish Airlines flight also departed for Dusseldorf from the city’s other airport, Istanbul Airport.

Only nationals of the destination countries or those with residence permits were allowed on the flights.

Entry into the terminals was also strictly regulated, with officials checking temperatures at the entrance and only allowing passengers with valid tickets to step inside.

Turkey resumed domestic flights on June. 1.

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NEW DELHI: India reported a record of nearly 10,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday with health services in the worst-hit cities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai swamped by the rising infections.

India’s tally has reached 286,579 confirmed cases, the fifth highest in the world, with 8,102 deaths, including 357 in the last 24 hours.

The spike comes as the government moved ahead with the reopening of restaurants, shopping malls and places of worship in most of India after lockdown of more than two months. Subways, hotels and schools remain closed.

The actual infection numbers are thought to be higher because of limited testing.

The Health Ministry said it was ramping up the capacity with daily testing of more than 145,000 people. The number of tests in India crossed 5 million on Wednesday.

It also said that the total number of recovered patients has exceeded the active cases for the first time with the recovery rate of nearly 49%.

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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea is reporting 45 new cases of COVID-19, all but two of them in the capital region, continuing a weekslong resurgence that health authorities fear could develop into a huge wave.

The figures announced Thursday bring national totals to 11,947 cases and 276 deaths. The capital of Seoul has 21 new infections, while 22 other cases are in nearby Incheon and Gyeonggi.

South Korea has been reporting around 30 to 50 new cases a day since late May, mostly in the densely populated Seoul area where about half of South Korea’s 51 million people live.

Despite expressing concern over the steady rise in infections, government officials are resisting calls to reimpose stronger social distancing measures. They cite concerns over hurting a fragile economy.

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BEIJING — China has reported a small spike in imported confirmed cases of the coronavirus to 11. There were no new deaths or cases of local transmission in Thursday’s report.

Chinese officials say just 62 people remain in treatment for COVID-19.

In addition, 130 people are under observation and isolation for showing signs of the illness or testing positive for the virus without showing any symptoms, as a safeguard against them possibly spreading it to others.

China has reported a total of 4,634 deaths from COVID-19 — a figure that hasn’t changed in weeks — among 83,057 cases recorded since the virus was first detected in the central industrial city of Wuhan late last year.

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he’s planning to hold his first rally of the COVID-19 era next Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And he says he’s planning more events in Florida, Texas and Arizona as well.

Trump made the announcement during a roundtable with African American supporters Wednesday afternoon that did not appear on his public schedule.

His signature rallies often draw tens of thousands of people but have been on hiatus since March 2 because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now killed more than 110,000 people in the U.S.

Trump’s campaign has been planning to resume rallies as it tries to move past the pandemic, even as cases continue to rise in some parts of the country.

A Trump campaign spokesperson tweeted a movie trailer-style video earlier Wednesday that advertised: “This month we’re back.”

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — As Puerto Rico considers lifting pandemic quarantine restrictions, health officials say the U.S. territory passed its peak of coronavirus cases and related deaths more than two months ago. However, independent experts said those numbers are in doubt.

Health Department consultant Miguel Valencia said at a news conference Wednesday that Puerto Rico’s confirmed COVID-19 cases peaked at 84 cases on March 31 and deaths at six on April 6. Overall, Puerto Rico has reported more than 5,300 confirmed cases and at least 143 deaths on the island of 3.2 million people.

Health Secretary Lorenzo González says the data will be taken into account when Gov. Wanda Vázquez decides whether to allow curfew and quarantine restrictions to expire on Monday. Those orders bar everyone except essential workers from being outside from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m.

But critics complain the island has done too little testing and most of what has been done used the wrong sort of tests.

Roberta Lugo, a Puerto Rico-based epidemiologist and consultant, told The Associated Press that the official statistics are based on a very limited number of reliable molecular tests that look for current infections.

She says most confirmed cases were detected by serological testing, which checks for antibodies and indicate someone was exposed at some undetermined point. She said 80% of detections should come from the tests for a current infection.

source: abcnews.go.com