For the second straight night, the health ministry delayed release of Thursday’s data until 10 p.m. local time, after Brazil’s widely watched evening news program ended. Thursday was the third straight day with a new daily high for Brazil’s coronavirus deaths.
Brazil has reported more than 34,000 deaths from the virus so far, meaning it surpassed the amount in Italy and trails only the U.K. and U.S. Experts consider the tally a significant undercount due to insufficient testing.
In Nevada, the casino coronavirus closure has ended. Cards are being dealt, dice are rolling and slot machines flashed and jingled for the first customers who started gambling again early Thursday in Las Vegas and throughout the state. Hotel-casinos in suburban areas were first to open, followed later by a restart of the iconic Bellagio fountain and reopenings of several resorts on the Las Vegas Strip.
South Korea, meanwhile, has reported 39 new cases of the coronavirus over a 24-hour period, a continuation of an upward trend in new infections in the Asian country.
The additional figures released Friday by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took the country’s total to 11,668 cases, with 273 deaths.
The agency says 34 of the additional cases were reported in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where about half of South Korea’s 51 million people live.
South Korea has seen a rise in the number of new cases after easing much of its rigid social distancing rules in early May. But the caseload hasn’t exploded, unlike when the country reported hundreds of new cases every day in late February and early March.
China is reporting five new confirmed coronavirus cases, all of them brought by Chinese citizens from outside the country.
No new deaths were reported Friday, continuing a trend stretching back weeks.
Chinese officials say just 66 people remain in treatment and 299 more are under isolation and being monitoring as suspected cases.
China has reported 4,634 deaths among 83,027 cases since the virus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
China has drawn criticism of its initial handling of the outbreak and allegations it withheld crucial information, but it has repeatedly defended its record. On Thursday, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Beijing is committed to the “development of global public health.”
Officials in California say a second state prison employee has died after testing positive for the coronavirus.
The plant operations employee at Ironwood State Prison in eastern Riverside County died Wednesday. Spokeswoman Dana Simas released no additional information, citing the family’s privacy.
The first prison employee who tested positive for the virus and died was Danny Mendoza, a correctional officer at the California Rehabilitation Center. He died Saturday in the same county.
Nearly 400 prison department employees have tested positive for the coronavirus, but nearly half of those have returned to work.
There are more than 2,200 inmates with active cases in California. Twelve inmates have died, all at the California Institution for Men in San Bernardino County.
California Governor Gavin Newsom says he’s concerned about the spread of coronavirus as thousands of people gather for protests against police brutality across the state.
He said Thursday while visiting Stockton the state should prepare for an increase in the positive test rate because of both the protests and the reopening that’s underway.
He said he’s particularly concerned about the disproportionate impact of the virus on black Californians. Still the state has no plans to halt its reopening efforts.
The state’s top health official says the state is working hard to release more reopening guidelines.
