Nearly 50,000 people have died from the coronavirus in Brazil, the world No 2 hotspot, with 1,022 fatalities in the last 24 hours, according to the country’s health ministry. Brazil confirmed its first case of the novel coronavirus on February 26 and passed 1 million cases on Friday.
South Africa has announced nearly 5,000 new coronavirus cases for a new daily record. The country has recorded a total of 92,000 confirmed cases, which is about 30 percent of all cases across the African continent. At least 1,877 people have died in the country.
The Palestinian Authority is reinstating a five-day coronavirus restriction in two West Bank cities following a spike in infections. The actions in Hebron and Nablus came after 86 Palestinians tested positive for the virus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases there to 687, including two deaths.
More than 463,000 people have died as a result of the new coronavirus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. At least 8.75 million people have been confirmed to have the coronavirus around the world and more than 4.2 million have recovered.
Here are the latest updates:
Sunday, June 20
01:18 GMT – Rio mayor suspends games to give teams more time to prepare
The resumption of Brazilian football was dealt a setback when the city’s mayor suspended matches involving Botafogo and Fluminense in order to give the clubs more time to prepare for action.
The Rio de Janeiro state championship became the first of Brazil’s soccer tournaments to restart after a three-month hiatus on Thursday when reigning champions Flamengo beat Bangu 3-0.
However, Fluminense and Botafogo threatened not to play games scheduled for June 22, with Fluminense players saying they needed more time to train, and Botafogo declaring they would only be ready to play in July.
With courts refusing their appeal to postpone the games and the two clubs worried they would lose points by a WO, Mayor Marcelo Crivella took action.
His initial decree suspended all games in the Rio state championship until June 25 but he reversed that position hours later to halt only Botafogo’s match against Cabofriense and Fluminense’s encounter with Volta Redonda.
00:01 GMT – Montenegro restores some lockdown measures after new cases emerge
Montenegrin health authorities have restored some lockdown measures in a northeastern border town to contain a cluster of coronavirus cases, AP news agency reported.
Authorities have confirmed new cases of the virus after there had been none in Montenegro for several weeks. They say that out of the country’s 31 active cases, 26 were imported from neighbouring Serbia.
The infected people include some who went to a soccer game in Serbia’s capital of Belgrade and some citizens of the northeastern Montenegrin town of Rozaje who traveled to a town across the border.
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Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m Ted Regencia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
You can find all the key developments from yesterday, June 20, here.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
