Visitors look around the re-opened Yorkshire Air Museum in Elvington, northern England on July 4, 2020, as restrictions are further eased during the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. (LINDSEY PARNABY / AFP)

NEW YORK / RIO DE JANEIRO / SAO PAULO / LIMA / ROME / HOUSTON / BELGRADE / BOGOTA / LONDON / PARIS / MOSCOW / CAPE TOWN / AMSTERDAM / ABUJA / BUCHAREST - Rishi Sunak set out a radical blueprint to save jobs and pump life into the UK’s coronavirus-battered economy, including tax cuts on home-buying and dining out, and a new bonus for employers who don’t fire their staff.

“We face profound economic challenges,” the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of Commons on Wednesday, laying out a stimulus package he intends to amplify in a budget and spending review in the fall. “In just two months our economy contracted by 25 percent -- the same amount it grew in the previous eighteen years.”

Sunak faces a gargantuan task in pulling the world’s fifth-biggest economy out of what may be its worst recession in three centuries. Unemployment is expected to spike upwards as he unwinds unprecedented government programs that are funding the wages of more than 12 million workers. So far, the state has already provided more than 160 billion pounds of support for the economy.

He announced a new program to reward employers if they take back furloughed workers and keep them on continuously through the end of January. Businesses will receive a 1,000-pound bonus per employee who returns from furlough in a policy potentially worth 9 billion pounds.

Sunak cut the rate of value-added-tax on food, accommodation and attractions to 5 percent from 20 percent. The measure will last until Jan 12, in what he said was a 4 billion-pound catalyst.

He also announced an “Eat Out to Help Out” discount, offering a 50 percent price cut on meals at participating restaurants between Mondays and Wednesdays in August.

The Treasury also unveiled a 2 billion-pound program to pay the wages of more than 200,000 young workers, bringing to more than 6 billion pounds the value of measures to support jobs and environmental programs announced by Sunak in the run-up to his statement.

Britain's COVID-19 death toll rose by 155 to 44,391, the British Department of Health and Social Care said Tuesday.

A total of 286,349 people have tested positive for the disease, a daily increase of 581, according to the department.

A traveler wearing a protective face mask buys a train ticket at Hauptbahnhof main railway station in Berlin, Germany, July 7, 2020. (SEAN GALLUP / GETTY IMAGES / BLOOMBERG)

EU

The European Commission has reached agreements with pharmaceutical companies Roche and Merck KGaA to supply experimental drugs that can be used to treat COVID-19 patients, a commission source told Reuters on Wednesday.

The European Union (EU) executive agreed to the deal to source Roche's RoActemra and Merck's Rebif for supply to any 27 EU members states willing to buy them, the source who is familiar with the issue told Reuters. The person declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic.

The European Commission agreed to the deal to source Roche's RoActemra and Merck's Rebif for supply to any 27 EU members states willing to buy them, a source familiar with the issue told Reuters

The source declined to disclose the terms of the deal.

Roche and Merck were not immediately available for comment.

A commission spokeswoman was also not immediately available for comment.

The agreements follow requests from EU states in May to acquire the two drugs which are considered potentially useful against COVID-19.

RoActemra is a drug for rheumatoid arthritis, which has been tested on COVID-19 patients in combination with Gilead's antiviral remdesivir, the only treatment so far authorised by the European Union for its use against COVID-19.

Rebif is used to treat multiple sclerosis patients. It was originally developed by the Swiss biotech firm Serono before Merck bought the company.

The companies said in letters sent to the EU Commission that they could meet demand from EU countries, the EU source said, declining to name the EU states that expressed interest in the drugs. EU countries have now to agree with the companies on the supplies needed, the source said.

Global toll

Global COVID-19 deaths surpassed 540,000 on Tuesday and the global tally topped 11.6 million, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

The United States reported the most COVID-19 cases and deaths, with over 3 million cases and more than 130,000 deaths. Other countries with over 20,000 fatalities include Brazil, Britain, Italy, Mexico, France, Spain, and India, the CSSE data showed.  

READ MORE: COVID-19: WHO urges travelers to wear masks on planes

Austria

Austria is issuing travel warnings for Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova because of the worsening coronavirus situation in those countries and clusters in Austria involving people connected to the region, the government said on Wednesday.

The move, which means arrivals from those countries must show a negative test or go into two weeks' quarantine.

It comes as more than 3,000 people in the province of Upper Austria, which borders Germany and the Czech Republic, have been placed in quarantine to contain an outbreak there. At the center of that outbreak is a cluster of 180 cases linked to a church in the city of Linz with many Romanian parishioners.

In recent weeks in Austria, roughly 170 cases have been detected that were connected to a foreign country and the bulk were linked to "the Balkans", Kurz said, adding that checks at the borders with Hungary and Slovenia would be doubled.

Austria has so far reported 18,421 confirmed cases and 706 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

This screen grab taken from TV Brasil shows Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro speaking to the media at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on July 7, 2020. (TV BRASIL / AFP)

Brazil

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Tuesday he tested positive for the novel coronavirus after months minimizing the severity of the pandemic and defying medical experts, even as the virus has killed more than 66,000 people in his country.

The right-wing populist gave the news to reporters at his official residence standing just inches away from him, adding to criticism of his cavalier approach to the outbreak in Brazil, the world's worst outside the United States. Even as he announced his infection, the 65-year-old former army captain dismissed the dangers of the virus and credited unproven treatments for his mild symptoms.

"If it weren't for the test, I wouldn't know the result. And it turned out positive," he told the television cameras, adding he had started to feel sick on Sunday and grown worse on Monday, with a fever, muscle pains and exhaustion.

The president said he was taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug with unproven effectiveness against COVID-19.

Finishing the interview with three TV channels, Bolsonaro stepped back and removed his mask to reveal a smile, adding: "You can see from my face that I'm well and I'm calm."

ALSO READ: Bolsonaro threatens to withdraw Brazil from WHO

The Brazilian leader repeated his claim on Tuesday that the risks of COVID-19 were exaggerated and most Brazilians did not need to worry: "Be assured that for you the chance of something more serious is close to zero."

After his diagnosis, Bolsonaro said he would keep working via videoconference and "rarely receive one person or another to sign a document."

Pan American Health Organization director for communicable diseases Marcos Espinal wished Bolsonaro a "speedy recovery" but said his infection carried a message. "For Brazil, the infection of its president should reinforce the need to strengthen implementations of social distancing recommendations and the use of masks to mitigate the spread of coronavirus."

Brazil registered 45,305 new cases over the last 24 hours and 1,254 additional deaths, the nation's Health Ministry said Tuesday, bringing the nation's tally to 1,668,589 and the death toll to 66,741.

Brazilian financial markets retreated after news of Bolsonaro's infection, with Brazil's currency swinging into negative territory and its main stock index falling as much as 1.7 percent.

Chile

Chile on Tuesday reported that the country's tally of COVID-19 cases has reached 301,019, with 6,434 deaths.

In the past 24 hours, tests detected 2,462 new cases and 50 more patients died, according to the Health Ministry.

Across the country, 26,340 cases remain active while a total 268,245 patients have recovered from the disease.

Colombia

Colombia's national lockdown to control the spread of coronavirus will be extended by just over two weeks until Aug 1, President Ivan Duque said on Tuesday.

While the quarantine continues, municipalities with no coronavirus infections or with low infection rates will be allowed to open restaurants, theaters and gyms under strict protocols - including the use of face masks and social distancing - at the request of mayors.

The Andean country has reported more than 124,400 cases of the novel coronavirus and 4,359 deaths.

Colombia currently has 490 municipalities with no coronavirus infections, while 100 have low infection rates, Duque said. A further 295 have not reported cases in the last three weeks.

Egypt

Egypt confirmed on Tuesday 1,057 new COVID-19 infections, raising the tally in the country to 77,279, said the Health Ministry.

Another 67 deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 3,489, while 480 more patients were cured and discharged from hospitals, increasing the number of recoveries to 21,718, the ministry's spokesman Khaled Megahed said in a statement.

France

France was preparing for eventual resurgence of coronavirus epidemic and targeted lockdown would be imposed to preserve economic and social activities, Prime Minister Jean Castex said Wednesday.

"The virus is still here," Castex told local broadcaster BFMTV. "It was time to prepare for a second wave of the epidemic... It is the role of the State to prepare, to anticipate."

"But we would not proceed to a general lockdown like in March, as that has terrible economic and human consequences. Any new lockdown would be targeted," he added.

Castex, who had orchestrated the de-confinement plan, stressed "the need to preserve economic and social life" while implementing emergency measures to contain the epidemic resurgence.

France had put its 67 million residents into lockdown from March 17 to May 11 to curb the spread of the virus. Only necessary journeys were allowed, all non-essential businesses were shut down, factories halted production and borders were closed.

The restrictive rules triggered the country's worst post-war economic recession. The government expected growth to shrink by 11 percent this year and the public budget gap to widen by 11.4 percent.

As of Wednesday, France had registered 29,861 deaths caused by the coronavirus and 165,719 confirmed positive cases. A total of 8,336 infected people remain in hospitals, of whom 582 need life support.  

Germany

Germany’s coronavirus infection rate remained below the key threshold of 1.0, and the number of new cases stayed far below the level at the height of the outbreak.

The reproduction factor - or R value - dropped to 0.81 on Tuesday from 0.97 the previous day, according to the latest estimate by the country’s health body, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). 

There were 279 new cases in the 24 hours through Wednesday morning, bringing the total to 198,343, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Fatalities rose by 10 to 9,032. The number of deaths caused by the virus has remained under 50 for almost six weeks.

According to data from RKI Wednesday, the number of confirmed cases increased by 397 to 197,341 while the reported death toll rose by 12 to 9,036.

Italy

Italy on Wednesday called for new precautionary measures for passengers travelling to European Union countries from outside the bloc to contain the spread of the new coronavirus.

Italy has suspended all flights from Bangladesh for one week due to a “significant number” of passengers who tested positive to COVID-19 on a flight to Rome on Monday.

Italy's COVID-19 numbers continued a downward trend Tuesday, as Health Minister Roberto Speranza suspended flights from Bangladesh for a week over a spike in cases in Bangladeshis who traveled to Rome

The Ministry of Health said 138 new cases were reported over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of active cases to 14,242, down from 14,709 on Monday. Deaths rose by 30 to 34,899.

Italy's national serological testing plan is faced with a challenge as too few Italians are taking the test for coronavirus antibodies for the results to be valid, officials said. So far, around 70,000 tests have been administered since May, far below the 150,000-person threshold needed to make the test results useful on a national level.

Meanwhile, people who test positive for the coronavirus but refuse hospital treatment could face a prison sentence under a new regulation introduced in Italy's northeastern region of Veneto, which includes the city of Venice..

According to the order issued by Governor Luca Zaia on Monday, until the end of July hospitals must tell the public prosecutor's office of anyone refusing admission after testing positive. Anyone returning to Veneto must also be given two compulsory swab tests if they are returning from a business trip outside the European Union (EU) or a non-Schengen country, according to the order. 

Under Italian law, anyone who negligently spreads an epidemic risks a prison sentence up to 12 years, while anyone who does so wilfully may face up to life imprisonment.

ALSO READ: Italy cabinet approves 'mother of all reforms' to slash red tape

Lithuania

Lithuania plans to buy the antiviral drug remdesivir for the treatment of patients infected with COVID-19, the Health Ministry announced on Tuesday.

Lithuania needs more than 2,400 ampoules of remdesivir and now seeks to purchase slightly more than 700 ampoules, said the ministry in a release.

Part of the planned amount will be purchased together with other EU countries while the remaining will be bought individually.

Lithuania made the decision to buy remdesivir after the European Commission gave the greenlight to remdesivir last week.

So far, 1,844 confirmed cases and 79 deaths had been reported in Lithuania.

Mexico

Mexico's Health Ministry on Tuesday reported 6,258 new confirmed coronavirus infections and 895 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 268,008 cases and 32,014 deaths.

Morocco

A total of 228 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Morocco on Tuesday, bringing the total number of infections to 14,607.

The number of recoveries rose by 466 to 10,639, Hind Ezzine, head of the Epidemic Diseases at the Department of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Health, said at a regular press briefing.

Ezzine added that the death toll rose to 240, after three more fatalities were recorded in the last 24 hours.

Earlier in the day, Morocco imposed quarantine on the staff of three local prisons in Tangier, Safi and Moul El Bergui, as part of the efforts to contain the COVID-19 spread.

Separately, the government announced a gradual reopening of mosques throughout the country for the daily five prayers as of July 15, excluding the Friday prayer.

Namibia

Primary schools in Namibia reopened under strict health guidelines on Tuesday, with students returning to schools wearing masks and practicing social distancing.

READ MORE: WHO acknowledges 'evidence emerging' of virus' airborne spread

Classes for students of grades 11 and 12 resumed on June 3.

So far, Namibia has recorded 539 coronavirus cases with 25 recoveries.

Netherlands

The Netherlands shut its borders to people from Serbia and Montenegro again on Wednesday, a week after opening them, citing a rapid rise in coronavirus infections in both countries.

Travelers from Serbia and Montenegro regained access to the Netherlands on July 1 when the Dutch, following EU guidelines, reopened their borders to a list of 14 countries outside the bloc.

But the government said a rise in coronavirus infections in Serbia and Montenegro had forced it to take those countries off the list again, and that Dutch travelers should only visit them if absolutely necessary.

Nigeria

Nigeria resumed domestic flights on Wednesday after a hiatus of around three months as Africa's most populous country relaxes restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the new coronavirus.

The airports for the capital, Abuja, and commercial hub Lagos reopened for flights. A handful of other airports will open on July 11 and the remainder of airports will resume flights on July 15.

No date has been given for the resumption of international flights.

Nigeria had confirmed nearly 30,000 coronavirus cases and 669 deaths by late on Tuesday, with little sign of the outbreak slowing.

People sit in the lobby of a private hospital with chairs taped up to maintain social distancing, in Lima, Peru, July 7, 2020. (RODRIGO ABD / AP)

Peru 

Peru's COVID-19 caseload reached 309,278 on Tuesday after tests detected 3,575 new infections in the previous 24 hours, but the figure still marked a "sustained decline" in the number of new transmissions, according to Health Minister Victor Zamora.

"After having started phases 1 and 2 of economic activity, we have not detected a change in the general tendency of the disease, which is towards a sustained decline, slow but sustained throughout the country, and that is good news," Zamora said.

While the reopening of the economy has seen many more Peruvians circulating in the streets, it has not worsened the outbreak, he said.

Peru's COVID-19 death toll stands at 10,952. 

Romania

The number of coronavirus infections in Romania rose by a daily record of 555 new cases on the day taking the cumulative total to 30,175 cases, the government said on Wednesday, as the country is under a state of alert that is due to end on July 15.

Since Romania's outbreak came to light on Feb 26, 1,817 people have died.

About one third of Romania's cases have been concentrated in three cities: the capital Bucharest, the northern town of Suceava and in Transylvania's medieval city of Brasov.

Russia

The total number of cases of the novel coronavirus in Russia passed 700,000 on Wednesday, as the country reported 6,562 new infections in the past 24 hours.

The country's coronavirus crisis response centre said 173 people had died from the virus overnight, taking the official death toll to 10,667.

Total infections stood at 700,792 while the number of recoveries reached 472,511.

Serbia

Serbia will again impose a curfew in the capital Belgrade from Friday to Monday in order to suppress another COVID-19 outbreak, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday at a press conference broadcasted on the national television.

Vucic said that the situation in Belgrade, a city of 1.4 million people, is alarming because COVID-19 hospitals are running at full capacity, of which four cities were in a "serious" state.

Besides the curfew, a ban on gatherings of more than five people where the 2-meter distancing cannot be secured will also be imposed, Vucic said.

READ MORE: Dozens injured in Belgrade rioting sparked by new virus lockdown

He said Tuesday was the hardest day in Serbia during the whole pandemic. In the past 24 hours, 299 new cases were confirmed and 13 deaths were reported, the highest single day toll since the epidemic began in March.

A total of 16,719 confirmed cases and 330 deaths had so far been reported in the country.

South Africa

South Africa reported a record daily rise of 192 COVID-19 deaths late Tuesday, bringing the death toll in the country to 3,502.

The total number of confirmed cases in the country rose to 215,855, after 10,134 new cases were reported in the previous 24 hours, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said.

Western Cape remained the epicenter with 72,156 confirmed cases, followed by Gauteng with 71,488 cases, Eastern Cape with 40,401 cases and KwaZulu-Natal with 16,743 cases.

Earlier on Tuesday, the minister warned of a viral onslaught in Gauteng, as the province scrambled to find more beds for patients in critical condition.

Mkhize said the government might need to consider additional lockdown restrictions in parts of the country as infections continued to surge.

Spain

Catalonia's regional authorities will on Wednesday decide to make it mandatory to wear masks regardless of people's ability to maintain a safe distance, becoming Spain's first region to do so, Catalan regional leader Quim Torra said.

Torra said the measure would come into force on Thursday.

The doctor spearheading Spain’s fight against the coronavirus said recent regional outbreaks — particularly in Catalonia — are worrying, but the infection rate is going down in most of the country.

“We are not going up in general in Spain, we are going up in these specific areas,” Fernando Simon, the chief epidemiologist leading the government’s battle against COVID-19, told the Financial Times in an interview. “Outside these areas, the number of cases is still going down.”

Spain has recorded over 250,000 confirmed cases and more than 28,000 deaths from the pandemic but Simon said the true count might not be known until the autumn, noting that some death certificates may have been filled out inadequately at the peak of the outbreak.

Meanwhile, a team of researchers from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has developed new antibody tests that could detect whether a person has previously been infected by the coronavirus, with an accuracy of more than 98 percent, the CSIC confirmed in a press release on Tuesday.

Ukraine

A total of 49,607 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 1,283 deaths, have been registered in Ukraine as of Tuesday, and 22,193 patients have recovered, according to the country's Health Ministry.

A total of 564 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, 3,569 children and 7,046 health workers have been infected since the beginning of the country's epidemic.

US

The US coronavirus tally topped 3 million on Tuesday as more states reported record numbers of new infections, and Florida faced an impending shortage of intensive care unit hospital beds.

California, Hawaii, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma and Texas on Tuesday shattered their previous daily record highs for new cases. About 24 states have also reported disturbingly high infection rates as a percentage of diagnostic tests conducted over the past week. In Texas alone, the number of hospitalized patients more than doubled in just two weeks.

The US Department of Health and Human Services said it was adding short-term "surge" testing sites in three metropolitan areas in Florida, Louisiana and Texas. In Florida, only 17 percent of the total 6,010 adult ICU beds statewide were available on Tuesday.

Mississippi Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann tested positive for the coronavirus, local media reported.

A widely cited mortality model from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) projected that US deaths would reach 208,000 by Nov 1, with the outbreak expected to gain new momentum heading into the fall.

In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine said the state was ordering people in seven counties to wear face coverings in public starting on Wednesday evening.

Trump, who has pushed for restarting the US economy and urged Americans to return to their normal routines, said on Tuesday he would lean on state governors to open schools in the fall.

Meanwhile, the White House expects the next COVID-19 relief bill to cost about US$1 trillion and wants Congress to pass the legislation by the first week in August, a top aide to US Vice-President Mike Pence said.