By Erdogan Cagatay Zontur
ANKARA (AA) – Good morning, this is Anadolu Agency with a rundown of the latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic and other news in Turkey and around the world.
Let’s begin with the daily death toll from Turkey. The country’s health minister confirmed 119 more deaths from COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 2,259.
The total number of registered coronavirus cases surged to 95,591 as 4,611 more people tested positive for the virus.
Meanwhile, 1,488 patients recovered Tuesday and the total number of recoveries rose to 14,918.
Turkey evacuated 1,748 of its citizens from Europe, including from the U.K., Germany, the Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, and Belgium amid the pandemic.
All the evacuees will be quarantined in various student dormitories around the country.
– Coronavirus continues doing damage
The global death toll from the novel coronavirus crossed the 175,000 mark, while the number of cases topped 2.5 million, according to a running tally by U.S.’ Johns Hopkins University. Additionally, nearly 680,000 people have recovered from COVID-19 worldwide.
The World Health Organization (WHO) rejected claims that the novel coronavirus was transmitted to people "from an animal" and originated in a laboratory in China.
Those claims were fueled by U.S. President Donald Trump, who said last week that Washington wanted to find out whether the virus originated from a laboratory in the city of Wuhan. Trump has also pushed to call the virus the “Chinese virus,” a move critics call racist.
The U.S. is still the most affected country in the world, where deaths surpassed 43,000 and confirmed cases reached 816,000.
Italy, one of the worst-hit countries in Europe by the new coronavirus, reported 534 new deaths, bringing its tally to 24,648.
Spain’s Health Ministry announced 430 more deaths from the virus, pushing the total number of fatalities to 21,282.
In France, a total of 20,796 lives have been lost from coronavirus since the beginning of March. At least 548 people died Tuesday.
The U.K.'s coronavirus death toll hit 17,337 with 828 new fatalities.
The number of cases in Russia rose 5,642 to 52,763 on Tuesday, while the death toll reached 456, with 51 new fatalities.
State media reported an additional 88 deaths in Iran as the death toll rose to 5,297.
– Other developments
The U.S. Senate passed a massive $484 billion package Tuesday with hundreds of millions of dollars to assist small businesses amid an economic downturn caused by the pandemic.
United Arab Emirates-based companies shipped tons of jet fuel to eastern Libya, the stronghold of warlord Khalifa Haftar, in a suspected violation of an international arms embargo.
Ankara slammed recent remarks by France’s foreign minister against Turkey.
