Coronavirus: number of deaths in Brazil reaches new levels - China with promising drug

The corona virus continues to spread in Brazil. China's president is responding to the cover-up allegations by the United States. All news can be found in the news ticker.

• The President of China dismissed the allegations of covering up the outbreak of the Coronavirus * pandemic on Monday (see May 18 update).
• Meanwhile, China has announced billions in aid to support poorer countries.
• In Brazil , the situation is getting worse (see update from May 19, 10.20 a.m.)

• Here you will find the basic facts about the corona virus and the corona news from Germany. You can also find current case numbers in Germany here as a map *. The following recommendations for corona protective measures * are currently available.

Update of May 19, 21:26:  Worldwide have, according to the data of the Johns Hopkins University currently 4,867,515 people with the coronavirus infected (as of May 19, 21:45). The death toll is 321,459. As again recovered 1,671,375 people apply worldwide. 

Coronavirus: China develops promising drug - does it protect against re-infection?

Update of May 19, 1:45 p.m .:  According to their own statements, Chinese scientists are said to have developed a promising drug against the novel coronavirus * . The research team from Peking University said that it had already been successfully tested on animals. The agent is said to be based on antibodies * and is to be used in the treatment of corona infected people. The recovery can thus be accelerated and it should also be able to protect against renewed infection in the short term .

Diseases have no borders, neither does research, nor should humanity, said Sunney Xie, director of Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics (ICG), Peking University at the latest #VisionChina. # COVID_19 pic.twitter.com/oma3PUUcjS

The researchers obtained the antibodies from the blood of 30 people who had previously been infected with the coronavirus * . In infected mice, the viral load is said to have decreased by a factor of 2500 after the agent was injected. That said Sunney Xie , head of the Beijing Innovation Center to the news agency AFP. Xie hopes to use the antibodies to produce a "highly specialized drug" that " would stop the pandemic ." The scientists hope that the drug will be available at the end of the year, if possible before the expected second wave of infections in winter. The drug is currently being tested in Australia, with a clinical trial to follow soon.

Corona virus worldwide: Wildlife compensation programs are starting in China

Update from May 19, 1:35 p.m .: Since the corona virus * may have been transmitted by bats * and thus only found its way into the population, China is now taking the first consequences. To reduce zoonoses , i.e. infectious diseases that can be transmitted between humans and animals *, two Chinese provinces have now announced compensation programs. These are intended to offer companies an alternative to keeping and selling wild animals .

Animals such as bats or pangolins , which are considered a delicacy in parts of China, could transmit the pathogen Sars-CoV-2 * to humans and thus have triggered the current pandemic *. As a first reaction to the assumptions, the Chinese central government already banned all consumption and trade in wild animals in February. The provinces of Hunan and Jianqxi in central China are affected .

"China is offering a government buy-out to wildlife farmers in two provinces to help transition those whose livelihoods depend on breeding wild species for consumption away from the practice." https://t.co/mmcImn7bx6

In the future, 600 yuan (77 euros) will be paid for a civet cat , converted to 15 euros per living kilogram of cobra and 9.60 euros per living kilogram of bamboo rat . More than 2,300 farms in Jiangxi are said to raise wildlife for human consumption. The animals are worth a total of about 200 million euros. The animal welfare organization Humane Society International welcomed the move by the Chinese government. 

Corona virus worldwide: Brazil reports new horror figures - More than 250,000 infections registered

Update from May 19, 10.20 a.m .: Brazil reaches new highs in the number of
coronavirus infections . The largest country in Latin America with 210 million inhabitants has reported 255,368 coronavirus infections. The figure is based on the figures from the Johns Hopkins University (as of May 19, 10:26 am). This means that Brazil has overtaken Great Britain in the number of infected people (247,709) and, as the country with the third largest number of coronavirus infections, has followed the USA (1,508,957) and Russia (290,678) 16,853 people have been in Brazil after being infected with the

Corona virus died . According to data from the US-based Johns Hopkins University, the country with continental dimensions is still in sixth place in terms of the number of fatalities. The unreported number of infected people is likely to be much higher in Brazil. The reason for this is the lack of tests and laboratory results that have not yet been evaluated.

Chile has since announced that four ministers and around half of the senators are in Corona quarantine . The politicians had had direct contact with three parliamentarians who had been infected with the corona virus, as reported on Monday from official sources in the capital Santiago. The ministers of finance, home affairs, social affairs and the chief of staff in the presidential office, who also has ministerial rank, had to go into domestic isolation. Since the weekend, more than 20 of the 50 members of the Senate have also been quarantined.

Corona virus worldwide: China responds to allegations of cover-up

Original article from May 18: 

Beijing - The cover-up allegations of the USA against China, in whose metropolis Wuhan the coronavirus * Sars-CoV-2 had broken out, are in the focus again and again. China has now announced billions in aid and has denied the cover-up allegations . 

Corona virus worldwide: China announces billions in aid for poorer countries

China has made available two billion dollars (1.85 billion euros) for poorer countries over two years. President Xi Jinping announced this on Monday at the start of the World Health Organization (WHO) annual meeting . "Solidarity and cooperation are the most powerful weapons to defeat the virus," he said after the UN translation in a video that was shown at the start of the virtual session. He also called for more financial support from WHO. The United States had frozen its contributions because it accused the WHO of trusting China too much and responding too late to the corona pandemic.

Corona virus: China is defending itself against cover-up allegations

Xi also defended his country against the allegations of the Corona * pandemic. China has responded to the outbreak with openness and transparency and informed the international community as early as possible and forwarded data on the pathogen Sars-CoV-2 in good time, he emphasized.

In doing so, Xi responded to the criticism, especially from the United States , which accused China of covering up the outbreak. The United States government, the largest contributor to the WHO, accuses the UN organization of being China's mouthpiece and helping to cover up the outbreak. 

Corona virus worldwide: Brazil is increasingly becoming a hotspot

In Brazil, however, the situation is getting worse. The country is slowly but surely becoming a corona hotspot.

More than 240,000 infections have now been registered, and around 16,000 people have died as a result of Covid-19 , the newspaper "Estado de São Paulo" reported on Sunday evening (local time). Brazil has overtaken Italy and Spain in terms of the number of infected people *. 

Nevertheless, President Jair Bolsonaro continues to reject all protective measures and downplay the pandemic as "little flu". Most recently, he had been celebrated by hundreds of followers, contrary to the Corona protective measures *.

Meanwhile, research * for a drug * and a vaccine is advancing worldwide.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas answered the questions of the users in an ARD program - the last one provoked violent criticism on the Internet.

Politicians are flashing a vaccine demand from the pharmaceutical industry - this reveals a fundamental problem. 

In the wake of the Corona crisis, a price increase for meat products is being discussed again - a CSU politician is on the side of the Greens.

* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network

List of rubric lists: © dpa / Mark Schiefelbein