Coronavirus Global Roundup, May 4: No new cases in New Zealand, 5% rise in deaths in Canada, 27,000 new cases in the US

More than 3.5 million people have been affected by COVID-19 and more than 247,000 people have succumbed to the disease. About 1.1 million people have recovered from the infection so far. The curve still hasn’t flattened in the US, UK, Canada, and Brazil as active cases are constantly growing in these countries. [caption id=“attachment_8330851” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Image by Mircea Iancu from Pixabay.[/caption]

Decreasing deaths and cases in some parts

After one of the longest lockdowns and over 25,000 deaths, Spain is finally starting to see a decline in deaths and the number of new infections. As per media reports, about 164 people died in Spain on Sunday, May 3. This is the lowest daily death toll in six weeks for the country. Italy is also seeing a gradual reduction in cases and deaths now. About 1,400 new cases showed up in the country on Sunday as opposed to about 1,900 on Saturday. Also, the number of new deaths fell from 474 to 174 on Sunday. After lifting the lockdown last week, New Zealand saw zero new cases on Monday. Ashley Bloomfield, the Director-General of Health and the chief executive of New Zealand’s Ministry of Health said in a news conference that it shows that everyone has put in efforts. Medical officers in Canada reportedly say that the curve seems to be finally flattening in the country. Canada saw a 5% rise in death toll on Sunday bringing the total death toll to 3,682. The number hasn’t jumped by more than 10% since the last two weeks. The total number of confirmed cases in Canada right now is over 59,000. As per media reports Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada has announced that he will release more funds for mental health services.

The worsening situation in the US and Russia

Around 27,000 new cases showed up in the USA on May 3rd. More than 1.18 million people in the country are already infected and more than 68,000 have died.   For two days now Russia has been recording more than 10,000 new cases. The highest daily increase in new cases showed up on Sunday with more than 10.6K new confirmed cases and on Monday more than 10,500 new cases were reported again. The country right now has more than 145,000 confirmed cases. With 76 new deaths, the death toll in Russia is now at 1356.

FDA gives emergency use authorisation to COVID-19 antibody tests

On Sunday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorisation of antibody tests to the pharma giant Roche. Antibody tests are done to determine if a person has antibodies against SARS-COV-2 indicating that they have already been infected by this coronavirus. Though it is still not known whether the presence of antibodies means you are safe from being reinfected by the virus, antibody tests are being considered to be a way to open up economies. Roche’s head of diagnostics reportedly said on Sunday that they can produce about 50 million antibody tests per month and can scale up to 100 million per month by the end of 2020. The test is reportedly 100% effective in detecting antibodies and has only a 0.2% chance of false-positive results - where the test shows positive for the presence of antibodies even when the person does not have them. The blood sample for the test would be obtained from a vein instead of through a finger prick. For more information, read our article on How to deal with the anxiety of living through a pandemic.  Health articles in Firstpost are written by myUpchar.com, India’s first and biggest resource for verified medical information. At myUpchar, researchers and journalists work with doctors to bring you information on all things health.