The city of New Delhi on Sunday ordered many of its hospital beds to be reserved solely for residents of the Indian capital, as the number of Covid-19 infections continued to rise, Reuters reports.

India on Sunday registered 9,971 new coronavirus cases, taking the country’s tally to 246,628 cases, with 6,929 deaths. The case numbers lags behind only the US, Brazil, Russia, UK and Spain.

New Delhi city alone has registered more than 10% of the country’s infection 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.

“Delhi is in big trouble … corona cases are rising rapidly,” state chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a video message on Twitter, where he announced that private and city government-run hospitals will be reserved for Delhi residents.

“If we open Delhi hospitals for patients from all over, where will Delhi residents go when they get infected with coronavirus?”

Typically about 60-70% of patients admitted to hospitals in Delhi are people traveling from other states to get treatment as the city’s hospitals.

A Delhi government coronavirus mobile app showed the city of more than 20 million people had 8,049 Covid-19 beds, but more than half were already occupied. Of the 60 hospitals, 11 had no beds available, the app showed on Sunday.

The Delhi city government has issued an order saying hospitals must admit every patient from the city with coronavirus symptoms, following complaints from some people on social media that people were being refused treatment.

Malta reluctantly allowed 425 migrants held offshore for more than a month to disembark on Sunday after a group of them threatened to kidnap the crew of the chartered boats where they were being held, authorities said, according to Reuters.

Prime minister Robert Abela said the government had been forced to act after the crew of one of the boats called him directly for help.
“They gave us half an hour to act or they would kidnap the crew,” he said in a televised interview.

He said authorities decided against boarding the vessel by force and subduing the migrants after the military warned of the risk of injury to migrants and service personnel.

State-broadcaster TVM said the vessel was escorted to Valletta harbour by two army patrol boats.

Malta’s government started putting rescued migrants on chartered tourist boats at the end of April after insisting that Malta’s harbours were closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

AstraZeneca has approached its rival Gilead Sciences about a potential merger, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday.

Any merger, which would be the biggest healthcare deal on record, would bring together two of the companies leading the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to develop a vaccine and treatments for Covid-19.

A combination of the two would be valued at about £200bn. AstraZeneca, which is valued at £110bn, recently overtook Royal Dutch Shell to become the UK’s largest company by market value. Gilead was valued at about $96bn (£74bn) at Friday night’s closing price.

Related: Covid-19 vaccine: AstraZeneca has ‘approached Gilead over possible merger’

Pope Francis has warned Italians to not let their guard down against coronavirus, now that infection rates have fallen, and urged them to obey government rules on social distancing and the wearing of masks.

Francis, addressing several hundred people in St. Peter’s Square for his Sunday blessing, reacted to applause that broke out when he said their presence, albeit reduced, was a sign that Italy had overcome the acute phase of the pandemic.

“Be careful. Don’t cry victory too soon,” he cautioned them, departing from his prepared text, Reuters reports.

Nearly 34,000 people have died in Italy from the coronavirus, the fourth highest toll in the world after the United States, Britain and Brazil.

The number of daily deaths in Italy has fallen from nearly 1,000 several months ago to 72 on Saturday. Italy entered the latest phase of an easing of restriction on 3 June, when people were allowed to travel between regions again.

However, some Italians, particularly young people, have flouted remaining rules on social distancing and wearing masks in public places. Authorities have warned of the danger of a second wave.

“We still have to follow the rules,” Francis said. “Thank God, we are leaving the worst part, but always by obeying the rules that the authorities have stipulated,” he said.

Istanbul residents flocked to the city’s shores and parks on the first weekend with no coronavirus lockdown measures in place since 10 April, prompting a reprimand from the country’s health minister who warned that the pandemic still poses a threat, the Associated Press reports.

Images on social media and in the news media showed crowds picnicking and partying Saturday night without heeding social distancing or wearing masks.

Health minister Fahrettin Koca urged people to wear masks and keep their distance.

Restaurants, cafes, gyms, parks, beaches and museums began reopening Monday and domestic flights resumed.

Turkey has reported 4,669 deaths from Covid-19 and 169,218 confirmed infection cases.

A decision by the Interior Ministry to continue a weekend curfew in 15 provinces, including Istanbul, was overturned Friday by president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In a series of tweets, the president said he was reversing the decision on grounds that it would lead to different negative social and economic consequences.

Turkey opted for short weekend and holiday curfews during the pandemic instead of a total lockdown, fearing the negative effects on its already troubled economy.

People aged 65 and older and minors are still barred from leaving their homes except for allotted times during the week.

While sports around the world are emerging from coronavirus lockdowns with televised competitions, horseracing resumed in Beirut this week with no audience at all, Reuters reports.

Eight races went ahead on Thursday at the city’s Hippodrome with fans unable to watch or bet. For general director Nabil Nasrallah, it marked a new low point in a dramatic history since the track hosted monarchs and movie stars in the 1960s.

The grandstand was destroyed in fighting when Israel occupied Beirut in 1982 and stood on the frontline between warring factions during the country’s 15-year civil war.

The really tough times began late last year, when Lebanon’s currency began to slide, hiking prices and pushing many into poverty, Nasrallah said.

“We’ve lived through a lot … and this is the toughest time,” he added. “But we’re fighting to keep going.”

The jockeys had to wear masks and were sanitised before entering the track, which had closed for more than two months.

Lebanon, which has recorded 29 deaths from Covid-19, is now gradually lifting movement restrictions, allowing businesses to open at lower capacity and with safety guidelines.

While the World Health Organization has signalled that Latin America is the new centre of the pandemic, cases in Cuba have fallen for two months.

My colleague Ed Augustin reports from Havana.

Related: Cuba sets example with successful programme to contain coronavirus

The South African government has struck a deal with private hospitals and medical practitioners, on whom it will have to rely in the treatment of severely ill Covid-19 patients if public hospitals run out of space.

The government has been in talks for months with private firms and medical associations ahead of a probable scenario where public hospitals run out of critical care beds.

Providers will be able to charge a daily fee of up to 16,000 rand ($950) for Covid-19 patients that get treated in critical care beds in private hospitals, Anban Pillay, the health ministry’s deputy director-general for national health insurance, told Reuters.

The fee includes the cost of using the bed, paying a team of specialists to treat the patient and additional services including pathology and radiology.

Estimates vary widely as to how many critical care beds there are in the country. A ministry presentation in April put the total at around 3,300, with two-thirds of those in the private sector, while Healthcare provider Netcare estimates there are some 6,000 beds, with around 3,800 in private hospitals.

South Africa had recorded 45,973 coronavirus cases as of Saturday, the most in Africa, with the number rising more steeply in recent weeks.

Anti-racism protests attended by thousands of people in London and other major British cities “undoubtedly” risk causing an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases again, the British health minister Matt Hancock said on Sunday.

Thousands of people attended protests on Saturday to voice their anger at police brutality after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, ignoring restrictions that forbid gatherings of more than six people outside.

Asked during an interview on Sky News whether the number attending protests made an increase in infections more likely, Hancock said: “It is undoubtedly a risk.”

“I support very strongly the argument that is being made by those who are protesting … but 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,” he said.

John Edmunds, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said that while the risk of spreading the virus is lower outside, the current estimate is that around one in 1,000 people in the country are infectious.

“If you have a crowd of a few thousand people then you would expect some of those people to be infectious … so it is a risk to have thousands of people congregating together,” he told the BBC.

With further protests planned for Sunday, London police chief Cressida Dick urged protesters to “find another way to make your views heard which does not involve coming out on the streets of London” due to the coronavirus risk.

Kim Willsher in Paris

The French government has announced it intends to increase the fine for littering from €68 to €135, after complaints from street cleaners that people are throwing masks, gloves and tissues possibly contaminated with Covid-19 on to the streets.

A bill is expected to be presented to the lower house, the Assemblée Nationale, in the next 10 days as part of a clam down on littering and dumping, including throwing cigarette ends into the streets, another headache in French cities.

The move comes as the government is under pressure to ease restrictions further across the country ahead of the end of its three-week progressive deconfinement programme, after the country’s scientific advisory committee announced the epidemic is “under control” in France.

France has introduced measures to deal with the pandemic in three-week blocks, the next of which ends on 21 June.

Prof Jean-François Delfraissy, who heads the scientific committee, said there was a low circulation of the virus but advised the authorities to use the respite time to “prepare different state structures for an eventual return of the epidemic”.

Specialists cannot agree on the likelihood of a coronavirus “second wave”.

On Saturday, the Château de Versailles opened to the public for the first time in 82 days; about 70% of the château’s revenue comes from visitor ticket sales, but 80% of the visitors are tourists and France’s borders remain closed except for essential business and personal reasons. Château staff said there was a rush on the place on Saturday, but even so they have 4,000 visitors instead of the 20,000 a day on a normal June weekend.

France reported 31 new deaths from Covid-19 in the 24 hours to Saturday, bringing the total to 29,142 since March. The number of patients in intensive care with the virus is down to 1,059.

Poland’s attempts to contain the virus are hampered by outbreaks in coal mines in the southern region of Silesia, the Financial Times reports.

Like most of central Europe, Poland reacted quickly to the pandemic, closing its borders, shutting non-essential businesses and banning large gatherings, and suffered far fewer deaths (1,155) and infection cases (26,249) than many countries in western and southern Europe as a result.

But for the past six weeks, Poland has recorded roughly 300-400 new infections a day, and more than 50% of these have come from Silesia, which accounts for just 12% of the population.

More than 400 migrants disembarked in Malta overnight on Saturday from four tourist boats after the government U-turned and allowed them to land after nearly 40 days onboard.

The 425 migrants, who had been picked up in the Mediterranean during various rescue operations, had been in limbo since April on the chartered boats held outside Maltese waters, Agence France-Presse reports.

Malta had refused them entry, pointing to the closure of its ports due to the coronavirus emergency and also to its full detention centres.

But in an about-face late on Saturday, Malta’s government said it was not prepared “to endanger lives of both the migrants and the crew, due the lack of solidarity shown by European Union member states in terms of relocation”.

“No European country accepted these migrants despite talk of solidarity,” the government said in a statement.

Sources told AGI news service the decision was taken because the crew feared for their safety, with the government saying the situation became “very difficult and commotions arose”.

In the late hours of Saturday and early Sunday, the boats docked at Boiler Wharf in Senglea and the migrants disembarked. It was not immediately clear where they were taken.

Malta had come under fire from humanitarian groups for holding the migrants on the tourist boats, which are not designed for lengthy stays.

Africa’s long-distance truckers say they are facing stigma as they are increasingly accused of being carriers of coronavirus, the Associated Press reports.

While hundreds of truckers have tested positive for the virus in recent weeks, the drivers say they are being stigmatised and treated like criminals, and being detained by governments.

One side-effect is slowed-down cargo traffic, which has created a challenge for governments in much of sub-Saharan Africa, where many borders remain closed due the pandemic, on how to strike a balance between contagion and commerce.

Abdulkarim Rajab, a Kenyan who has been driving trucks for 17 years, said: “When I entered Tanzania, in every town that I would drive through, they would call me, ‘You, corona, get away from here with your corona!’”, and recalls the times in which drivers were being accused of spreading HIV during that outbreak.

Rajab and his load of liquefied gas spent three days at the Kenya-Tanzania border, where the line of trucks waiting to be cleared stretched into the distance and wound around the lush hills overlooking the crossing at Namanga.

Tanzania closed the border there this week, the second time the frontier was closed in less than a month, after many Tanzanian truckers with negative results started testing positive at the border.

Indonesia reported 672 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, taking the total to 31,186, according to a health ministry official.

There were 50 new deaths, taking the total to 1,851, while 10,498 people have recovered, the official, Achmad Yurianto, said.

My colleague Robin McKie has taken stock of the world’s attempts to get a grip on the pandemic, six months into a crisis that has killed an estimated 400,000 people, saw 6 million people get infected and has changed the world.

Related: After six months of coronavirus, how close are we to defeating it?

The Australian government said on Sunday it will continue to underwrite domestic flights through September, extending its aid for airlines such as Qantas Airways and Virgin Australia Holdings hurt by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Deputy prime minister and transport minister Michael McCormack said the initial backing, due to expire on Monday, will be extended to cover shortfalls in operating flights on top domestic routes, even as airlines start to rebuild crushed capacity, according to Reuters.

Australia has barred its citizens from almost all outbound travel in order to stop the spread of the new coronavirus.

“The Australian government is doing everything possible to ensure the aviation industry is sustained throughout the pandemic so that it can rebound on the other side,” McCormack said in a statement.

With border closures and social distancing since March, Australia has avoided the high infections and casualties of many nations, reporting 102 deaths and 7,255 infections so far.

Malaysia will lift most coronavirus restrictions on businesses on Wednesday, including a ban on travel between its states, after a lockdown of nearly three months.

The country’s international borders will remain closed, however, Reuters reports.

Prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced in a televised address on Sunday that the coronavirus outbreak was under control and Malaysia would begin a new recovery phase that would last until 31 August.

Malaysia had gradually allowed businesses to reopen with social distancing guidelines over the past month, after shutting all non-essential businesses and schools, banning public gatherings and restricting travel on 18 March.

Malaysian health officials reported 19 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, taking the cumulative total to 8,322. So for, 117 deaths have been recorded.

The exodus of migrant workers from big cities is plunging India’s factories into a crisis, Agence France-Presse reports.

An acute shortage of workers has turned the roar of machines to a soft hum at a footwear factory near New Delhi, just one of thousands in India struggling to restart after migrant workers decided to leave town during the virus lockdown.

India is slowly emerging from strict containment measures that were imposed in late March as leaders look to revive the battered economy, but manufacturers don’t have enough workers to man the machinery.

The big cities, once an attractive destination for workers from poor, rural regions, have been hit by reverse migration as millions of labourers flee back to their home villages, some uncertain if they will ever return.

Sanjeev Kharbanda, a senior executive with Aqualite Industries, which owns the footwear factory in the northern state of Haryana, said: “Sixty per cent of our labourers have gone back. How can we run a production unit with just one-third of our workforce?”

Kharbanda said the company’s sports shoe unit had been sitting idle as there were no skilled workers to operate the high-tech machines.

“We are running just one shift now. The cost of production has gone up and our profits are going down,” he said, a conveyor belt carrying semi-finished flip-flops running slowly in the background.

In Gujarat state’s Surat city – where 90% of the world’s diamonds are cut and polished – many factories have been unable to open after more than two-thirds of workers fled, Surat diamond association president Babu Kathiriya told AFP.

Meanwhile, the state’s salt refineries have started doubling salaries to lure staff back. But experts say the workers may not return anytime soon.

There are an estimated 100 million migrant workers – nearly a fifth of the labour force and contributing to an estimated 10% of GDP – across the nation of 1.3 billion people.

Many are employed as cheap labour across a vast range of sectors including textiles, construction, mines and small businesses.

Russia has reported 8,984 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours to Sunday, pushing the total number of infections to 467,673.

Officials said 134 people had died during the same period, bringing the official nationwide death toll to 5,859.

The coronavirus lockdown in Greece’s overcrowded migrant camps has been extended for another two weeks, while the rest of the country gears up to revive its tourism-dependent economy, Agence France-Presse reports.

“For residents of the reception and identification centres across the country, measures against the propagation of the Covid-19 virus are extended until 21 June,” the official Government Gazette said.

Greece has fared better than most of its European partners in the pandemic, with 180 deaths and 2,980 cases.

The country was quick to introduce strict confinement measures on migrant camps on 21 March and imposed a more general lockdown on 23 March.

More than 33,000 asylum seekers live in the five camps on the Aegean islands, with a total capacity of 5,400 people, and some 70,000 in other facilities on the mainland.

While no Covid-19 deaths have been recorded in the camps so far and only a few dozen infections, the measures have since been extended a number of times.

Rights groups have expressed concern that migrants’ rights could be eroded by the anti-virus restrictions.

Massive virus screening in the camps only started in early May.

Millions of people across the globe have relied on daily or even hourly updates from various media outlets during the pandemic, which saw new laws introduced, borders closed and restrictions amended, often overnight.

CNN reports on how people without internet access have been affected.

Taiwan will further ease its coronavirus restrictions, the government said on Sunday, as the island has kept the pandemic well in hand with only six active cases and no local transmission for 56 days.

Taiwan has never gone into total lockdown and life has continued largely as normal due to its early and effective prevention work and a first rate public health system, but has promoted social distancing and ensured broad public access to face masks, Reuters reports.

Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Centre said that it would lift restrictions limiting the number of people who could participate in “daily life and leisure events”, though people should continue to wear face masks if they were unable to socially distance.

However, border entry restrictions remain, with authorities wary of a second wave of infections coming in from countries where the pandemic is still raging, such as the United States and Britain.

Taiwan has reported 443 cases, the majority of which were in people who got infected overseas, and just seven deaths.

Hello everyone, I’m taking over from Rebecca Ratcliffe for the next few hours. If you have any updates to flag, please feel free to message me, either via email, or you can get me on Twitter @JedySays.

I can’t always respond to every email but I read them all and appreciate every tip.

That’s all from me – I’m now handing over to my colleague in London, Jedidajah Otte, who will keep you updated with the latest coronavirus developments from around the world.

China has released a lengthy report on the country’s response to Covid-19, while officials have rejected allegations that information about the virus was withheld, the country’s state television channel CGTN reports.

The report praises officials’ response to the pandemic as a thorough and comprehensive effort.

China’s relations with other countries have been strengthened rather than undermined by the pandemic, Ma Zhaoxu, the country’s vice minister of foreign affairs, said, according to CGTN.

Australia’s deputy chief medical officer Paul Kelly has said authorities could be forced to ask Australians who attended Black Lives Matter protests over the weekend to self isolate if clusters emerge among attendees, reports Elias Visontay in Canberra.

Kelly said he was encouraged by the sight of masks at Saturday’s protests and said he understood the right to protest, but reiterated the different state governments and the Australian Health Protection and Principal Committee had strongly suggested people not attend any of the mass gatherings.

He said that while people who attended the protests do not have to isolate or get tested if they don’t have symptoms, “if we were to start seeing cases crop up in the next week for example, then we might need to change that message”.

He also said the CovidSafe contact tracing app could help locate possible cases if there are reports of clusters among attendees.

Black Lives do matter, all lives matter, and I absolutely understand the depth of feeling that people expressed in those protests yesterday and are expressing in other ways over this matter.

It does bring people from widely dispersed parts of a city or a state that may not know each other into close proximity, which allows that virus to spread from person to person and then for people to widely scatter to within the city or the state…This is of concern if there was someone in one of those large protests yesterday with COVID-19, and they were infectious.

Kelly made the announcement during a national Covid-19 update. As of Sunday afternoon, there have been six new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, taking Australia’s total to 7260. However the number of active cases is now below 460, with less than 20 people in hospital and three people in intensive care units. The death rate remains at 102.

Care home residents are on course to make up more than half the deaths caused directly or indirectly by the coronavirus crisis in England, according to a new analysis.

The study warns that the death toll by the end of June from Covid-19 infections and other excess deaths is “likely to approach 59,000 across the entire English population, of which about 34,000 (57%) will have been care home residents”.

The estimate, produced by the major healthcare business consultancy LaingBuisson, includes people who list a care home as their primary residence, wherever they died – including those who died in hospital.

It is based on data from the Office for National Statistics, as well as the analyst’s own modelling of the number of care home resident deaths likely to have occurred in the absence of the pandemic.

The new study coincides with mounting concerns over the failure to protect care homes earlier in the pandemic. Senior care industry figures point to the decision to move some hospital patients back to care homes in mid-March. There have also been complaints that non-Covid-related healthcare became less accessible to homes during the height of the pandemic, leading to extra deaths.

Related: More than half of England’s coronavirus-related deaths will be people from care homes

Fujifilm Holdings Corp’s research on Avigan as a potential treatment for COVID-19 may drag on until July, a further setback in the Japanese firm’s race to find a vaccine, reports Reuters.

“There is a possibility that clinical trials will continue in July,” a Fujifilm spokesman said, responding to a Nikkei report that any approval will be delayed until July or later, due to a lack of patients for trials.

After the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave up on getting approval for the drug by the end of May, the aim was to complete clinical trials this month. But researchers have only been able to get around 70% of the patients needed for the trials, and because it takes 28 days to get results, the process will continue until at least July, the Nikkei business daily said, citing an unnamed source.

The spokesman said Fujifilm does not make public details of the progress of clinical trials but it has expanded the number of medical institutions that are cooperate in the trials. “We aim to complete clinical trials as soon as possible.”

A further Black Lives Matter protest is planned for Western Australia’s capital, Perth, next weekend after yet another Indigenous death in custody on Friday. Australian Associated Press has this report:

An Aboriginal prisoner who died in Western Australia had suffered health problems, the state government says, while urging people who plan to attend another Black Lives Matter protest in Perth to abide by Covid-19 rules.
The 40-year-old Acacia prison inmate was found collapsed on Friday but could not be revived and was pronounced dead in hospital.
Police said his death did not appear to be suspicious, but they are investigating and an inquest will be held given it is a death in custody.
The Department of Justice will also conduct an internal review.
“The initial advice we have is there were some health issues associated with this poor man,” premier Mark McGowan told reporters on Sunday.
He then called on the organisers of a Black Lives Matter rally planned for Hyde Park on Saturday to comply with coronavirus rules.