China Confirms Largest One-Day Jump In COVID-19 Cases Since April: Live Updates

Summary:

• China confirms 57 cases from June 13
• Tokyo sees another spike
• 23 US states see cases climb
• Several states reporting record jumps
• Iran sees deaths rebound
• Brazil, Russia, India, Mexico see troubling climb continue
• UK officials review lockdown conditions

* * *

Update (0900ET): The SCMP has a more detailed breakdown of the latest batch of cases reported in China Sunday, the largest one-day total in 2 months.

Beijing reported 36 new local coronavirus cases on Sunday, all of them linked to the city’s biggest wholesale food market.

The patients included 27 people who worked at the Xinfadi food market, which has been closed down, and nine who had been exposed to it, the municipal government said.

Another person had also tested positive for the coronavirus but showed no symptoms, it said. Under Chinese rules, asymptomatic cases are not added to the tally.

Beijing has confirmed 43 local cases since Thursday, before which it had not had any for 55 days.

The outbreak has also spread beyond the capital to neighbouring regions, with the Liaoning provincial government announcing two new cases on Sunday, both of whom had been in close contact with Beijing residents confirmed as having the virus this week.

For the country as whole, there were 57 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the 24 hours to midnight Saturday, the National Health Commission reported, the biggest one-day total in two months. Some 38 of the new cases were locally transmitted, including the 36 in Beijing, with the other 19 were travellers arriving from abroad.

A spokesman for the Beijing Health Bureau urged all residents who visited the Xinfadi market to get tested immediately (that’s an order, not a request).

With the market in Beijing accounting for the vast majority of new cases, it’s clear that the officials are reckoning with the reality that the asymptomatic spread across China’s biggest cities is likely much larger than authorities will admit.

* * *

The steady drumbeat of discouraging COVID-19-linked headlines continued yesterday as Florida, along with several other southern states, reported record-breaking spikes in new infections. That marked the state’s third daily record in a row, as Gov Ron DeSantis has blamed farm workers and sought to play down the rising numbers as an inevitable consequence of reopening, as beachgoers returned to Miami Beach for the first time.

According to the New York Times, there are 23 states where the daily number of new cases continues to climb.

Here’s what the Times heatmap of the US looked like Sunday morning:

Source: NYT

With a large swath of southwestern Beijing back under lockdown, Chinese health officials said they confirmed another 57 new cases yesterday as they aimed to test more than 10k people connected by contact tracers to a local seafood wholesaler/market that has been shut down for a deep cleaning, as officials said it was the epicenter of the latest outbreak. Furthermore, officials have moved a widely anticipated economic briefing online. The NBS presser will take place at 10amET.

#BREAKING:Mainland #China reported 57 new cases of #coronavirus and 9 asymptomatic cases for Saturday, said the National Health Commission.Nineteen of them were imported cases.#Beijing reported 36 locally transmitted cases. The other 2 local cases were in Liaoning.

— Jeremy (@mehabecapital) June 14, 2020

Meanwhile in Japan, officials in Tokyo confirmed the capital city’s largest daily total (47) of new COVID-19 cases since May 5.

In the Middle East, Iran suffered its biggest daily death toll from the coronavirus since April 13, around the time Iran started relaxing its lockdown. So far, a total of 187,427 people have been infected with the disease and 8,837 have died in Iran, according to Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari.

He added that Iran reported 107 deaths over the last 24 hours, a 9-week high.

In the UK, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak backed calls to ease the UK’s 2-meter social distancing benchmark as HMG carries out its “comprehensive review” of the restrictive lockdown measures imposed by PM Boris Johnson during the early days of the pandemic. Since then, the methodology of the projections that inspired the government’s approach have come under question.

As the number of new cases continues to soar in Brazil, Mexico, India and Russia, the Russians reported 8,835 new confirmed coronavirus infections, a 1.7% increase over the past day. An additional 119 people died in same period, bringing the overall death toll to 6,948, leaving it in third place.

Meanwhile, the global tally of coronavirus cases has surpassed 7.8 million cases, while the US is nearing 2.1 million cases (2,074,526).

US virus cases rose by more than 25k cases reported yesterday (remember, these numbers are reported with a 24-hour lag), the fastest pace in two weeks, while Brazil’s infections increased 2.6% as deaths climbed 2.1%, with Brazil seeing the number of cases draw closer to the 850,000 mark. Deaths in the country are nearing 50k.