www.zerohedge.com 
Summary:
- Cuomo says concerned protests could spark COVID resurgence
- Italy, UK report drop in new deaths
- Canada reports 0.9% increase in fatalities
- Saudi Arabia sees cases top 100k
- India sees another discouraging jump in cases
- Hospitals in Delhi reserving more space for COVID-19 patients
- Russia reports fewer than 9k new cases
- Brazilian government stops publishing critical virus data on deaths and confirmed cases
- China denies latest AP report alleging it withheld critical info
- UK Secretary of Health says protests are inherently unsafe
* * *
Update (1400ET): Gov Cuomo expressed “concern” that the protests on Saturday, some of the largest yet, while few arrests were made and gatherings continued long into the night, might worsen the spread of the coronavirus as the city prepares to start its process of reopening on Monday, per BBG.
* * *
Update (1335ET): Italy reported just 53 deaths on Sunday (remember, data are reported with a 24-hour delay), while the UK reported fewer than 100 deaths, fewer than half of yesterday’s total.
They remain in second and fourth place, respectively, in the ranking of countries with the highest number of confirmed deaths (many experts suspect that the total number of actual deaths in Brazil is probably higher than the ~50k confirmed in the UK).
Canada, meanwhile, saw its death toll climb by less than 1% on Sunday, climbing by 70 deaths, or 0.9%, to 7,773. The total number of cases rose to 95,057, an increase of just 722 cases. Canada’s 10 provinces have all started to reopen their economies and relax social distancing restrictions.
* * *
Globally, the number of confirmed coronavirus deaths surged pass the 400k mark on Sunday, while the number of confirmed cases draws ever-nearer to 7 million.
In the UK, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News that attending protests, even with a mask, is “undoubtedly a risk,” echoing comments from Dr. Fauci made during an interview with CNBC on Friday.
“The virus itself doesn’t discriminate and gathering in large groups is temporarily against the rules precisely because it increases the risk of the spread of this virus,” Hancock said.
Meanwhile, the WHO has changed its position on face masks, and is now encouraging people to wear them in crowded places, citing more anecdotal evidence claiming they help stop viral spread.
As BoJo struggles to reopen the British economy as cases and deaths remain stubbornly high, Scotland recorded no new deaths of COVID-19 patients in the past 24 hours, while Northern Ireland’s health department also said it had no new deaths to report.
“I would offer a note of caution about reading too much into today’s figure. We know that fewer deaths tend to be registered at the weekend,” Freeman said at a news conference.
“It is still very likely that further COVID deaths will be reported in the days ahead.”
Pope Francis warned Italians to not let their guard down against the virus and urged them to continue following government edicts on social distancing and wearing masks.
With its outbreak spinning further out of control – thanks largely to Mexico and Brazil, Latin America is reported far more new cases and deaths per day than the US – Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has made the controversial decision to pull months of publicly available data on coronavirus cases and deaths in the country, a transparent attempt to try and hide the extent of a crisis that the president blithely refused to confront, allowing tens of thousands of Brazilians to die for lack of health-care resources in remote areas, according to Reuters.
Brazil’s Health Ministry removed the data from a website that had documented the epidemic over time and by state and municipality. The ministry also stopped giving a total count of confirmed cases, which have shot past 672,000 – more than anywhere outside the United States – or a total death toll, which passed Italy this week, nearing 36,000 by Saturday.
“The cumulative data…does not reflect the moment the country is in,” Bolsonaro said on Twitter, citing a note from the ministry. “Other actions are underway to improve the reporting of cases and confirmation of diagnoses.”
Bolsonaro has played down the dangers of the pandemic, replaced medical experts in the Health Ministry with military officials and argued against state lockdowns to fight the virus, hobbling the country’s public health response.
Roughly 30% of the global total of cases are in the US, but Latin America is rapidly catching up, with more than 15% as of Sunday. Some 6.9 million infections have been confirmed worldwide.
As cases continue to spike in India despite another extension of what has been an at times suffocating lockdown, the city of New Delhi ordered many of its hospital beds to be reserved solely for COVID patients.
India on Sunday registered 9,971 new coronavirus cases, bringing the tally to 246,628 cases, with 6,929 deaths. Its numbers now lag only the US, Brazil, Russia, United Kingdom and Spain.
New Delhi city alone has registered more than 10% of total cases, making it the third worst-affected part of the country after the western state of Maharashtra, home to financial capital Mumbai, and southern Tamil Nadu state.
The number of coronavirus cases in Saudi Arabia exceeded 100,000, following a rise in new infections over the past ten days. The ministry of health reported 3,045 new cases, taking the total to 101,914, with 712 deaths.
Russia reported 8,984 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours, raising its total infections to 467,673. Officials reported 134 new deaths during the same period, bringing the official nationwide death toll to 5,859.
Meanwhile, in Beijing, China’s health ministry denied an AP report claiming that Beijing dragged its feet on sharing data on the infection with the WHO, refusing cooperation that could have potentially accelerated the global response.
