New Zealand reports first coronavirus death in three months
4 September 2020, 08:04
A man in his 50s died at an Auckland hospital.
New Zealand has reported its first death from coronavirus in more than three months.
Health authorities said a man in his 50s died at an Auckland hospital where he was being treated for the virus after a small outbreak in the city that began last month.
A lockdown in Auckland has been eased, but crowd sizes are limited across the country and masks mandated on public transport.
New Zealand has reported more than 1,700 cases and 23 deaths.
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the country will keep its current restrictions until at least mid-September.
“As with last time, a cautious approach is the best long-term strategy to get our economy open and freedoms back faster in the long term,” she said.
Meanwhile, the number of people infected in India rose by another 83,000 to take the country close to Brazil’s total, the second-highest in the world.
The 83,341 cases added in the past 24 hours pushed India’s total past 3.9 million, according to the Health Ministry.
Brazil has confirmed more than four million infections while the US has over 6.1 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.
India’s Health Ministry also reported 1,096 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 68,472.
India’s fatality rate of 1.75% is well below the global average of 3.3%, the ministry said, but experts have questioned whether some states have undercounted deaths.
India added nearly two million coronavirus cases in August alone.
In a country of 1.4 billion people, only those places most affected by the virus remain under lockdown. People are crowding markets and other public spaces with potential safety measures like masks and social distancing largely unenforced.
