Coronavirus cases pass 6 million as Donald Trump postpones G7

The number of people infected by the coronavirus around the world has passed 6 million, as the pandemic forced Donald trump to postpone the G7 summit in Washington.

According to the latest data from the Johns Hopkins University tracking site, there have now been more than 6,059,000 cases of the disease around the world, with 369,126 deaths.

More than 1.7 million of those cases have been registered in the United States, and its continued spread in the world’s richest nation has forced the US president to abandon plans to stage a G7 summit as his hoped-for sign of America’s recovery.

Trump wanted world leaders to have a face-to-face meeting with him at Camp David near Washington next month but he said on Saturday that it would not go ahead. It follows a decision by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, not to attend unless the spread of the pandemic showed signs of abating.

Trump said he hoped the meeting could take place in September instead and hinted that he wanted to invite more countries to attend, such as Australia, Russia and India.

Brazil has surpassed France’s death toll after it reached 28,834 coronavirus fatalities, becoming the country with the world’s fourth-highest death toll. The country has almost 500,000 cases, second behind the US.

Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro remain the hardest-hit states in Brazil, while per capita rates are higher in the country’s impoverished north and north-east, where health facilities are reaching capacity.

Brazil’s ministry of health says it cannot predict when the country’s outbreak will peak, and experts say the number of cases could be 15 times higher than the confirmed figure because there has been no widespread testing.

The pandemic has become an intensely political issue in Brazil where state governors and city mayors have implemented restrictive measures despite being berated by president Jair Bolsonaro, who has attacked “the tyranny of total quarantine”.

Further north in Mexico, there were 2,885 new cases of coronavirus registered on Saturday and 364 more deaths, bringing the total numbers to 87,512 cases and 9,779 fatalities, according to data from health authorities.

Frontline workers in Mexico City’s hospitals are planning a national march to demand better personal protective equipment (PPE). Government figures show that nurses and other health workers account for about a quarter of all of Mexico’s coronavirus infections, one of the highest rates in the world.

China recorded two new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Saturday, down from four the day before, data from the country’s health authority showed on Sunday.

The country’s economy continues to suffer under the impact of the pandemic, with figures released on Sunday showing a huge slump in exports. Orders fell at the fastest pace in years, the data showed, with an indexed rating standing at 35.3 in May, well below the 50-point mark which represents expansion of the sector.

However, the closely watched manufacturing sector purchasing manager’s index (PMI) was 50.6 in May, compared with 50.8 in April, pointing to some recovery in the industrial sector. Analysts had expected 51.0.