Russia today reported 6,736 new cases of the novel coronavirus, raising the nationwide tally to 681,251.
Authorities said that 134 people had died in the last 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 10,161, much lower than many other countries with a similar number of cases.
MEXICO
Mexico reported 523 more coronavirus deaths, pushing its tally to 30,366, overtaking France to become the fifth-highest in the world.
The health ministry also reported 6,914 new infections and a total of 252,165 confirmed cases.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez Gatell reiterated that the actual number of infected was probably significantly higher.
“We knew from the beginning that the cases we report here do not represent the total number of people with COVID-19 in Mexico,” he told a regular news conference.
SPAIN
Spain’s north-eastern region of Catalonia enforced a new lockdown on more than 200,000 people, after several new outbreaks of the coronavirus were detected.
Residents in Segria, which includes the city of Lleida, will not be able to leave the area, but will not be confined to their homes as was the case in Spain’s original strict lockdown in March.
Regional health ministry data showed there were 3,706 cases in the Lleida region on Friday, up from 3,551 the previous day.
Movement for work will be permitted, but from Tuesday workers entering or leaving the area will have to present a certificate from their employer.
INDIA
Visitors to the Taj Mahal will have to wear masks at all times, keep their distance and not touch its glistening marble surfaces when India’s 17th-century monument to love reopens tomorrow after a three-month COVID-19 shutdown.
Only 5,000 tourists will be allowed in a day, split into two groups, a far cry from peak levels of 80,000 a day who would swarm the mausoleum built in the northern city of Agra by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his wife, in a 22-year effort.
“All centrally protected monuments & sites shall be bound by the protocols like sanitization, social distancing & other health protocols,” the federal tourism ministry said in a tweet.
Authorities are reopening the Taj and other monuments, such as New Delhi’s historic Red Fort, just as India’s coronavirus infections are rising at the fastest pace in three months.
USA
U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to defeat the “radical left,” in an Independence Day speech at the White House that condemned recent protests against monuments to historical figures as attempts to destroy the United States.
Trump claimed without evidence that 99% of coronavirus cases in the United States were “totally harmless.” In fact, many states marked a record number of new COVID-19 cases. In Texas alone, 7,890 patients were hospitalized after 238 new admissions over the past 24 hours.
Trump, who has faced criticism over his handling of the pandemic, said China must be “held accountable” for failing to contain the disease.
The administration held a fireworks display over the National Mall, despite Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s warnings that the mass spectator event would defy health officials’ guidance during the pandemic.
Just steps from where Trump spoke, peaceful protesters marched down blocked-off streets around the White House, Black Lives Matter Plaza and the Lincoln Memorial. They were confronted by counter-protesters chanting, “USA! USA!” but there were no reports of violence.
Millions of Americans have been demonstrating against police brutality and racial inequality since the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
In addition to achieving police reforms in some cities, some protesters have removed Confederate statues and other symbols of America’s legacy of slavery.
“There have always been those who seek to lie about the past in order to gain power in the present, those that are lying about our history, those who want us to be ashamed of who we are,” Trump said on Saturday.
Trump’s Fourth of July remarks doubled down on his speech the previous evening at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota where he accused “angry mobs” of trying to erase history and painted himself as a bulwark against left-wing extremism.
Just months before November’s presidential election, opinion polls in key states show Trump trailing his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden wrote a Fourth of July opinion piece that struck a contrasting note with the Republican president and accused him of finding “new ways to tarnish and dismantle our democracy” every day.
In a separate letter to donors, Biden said: “We have a chance now to give the marginalized, the demonized, the isolated, the oppressed, a full share of the American dream.”
(REUTERS)
