Coronavirus live updates: Offices, shops to remain shut in Haryana on weekends

Health authorities in China's capital Beijing have removed a requirement for people to wear masks outdoors, further relaxing rules aimed at preventing the spread the novel coronavirus after the city reported 13 consecutive days without new cases. Despite the relaxed guidelines, a large proportion of people continued to wear masks in Beijing on Friday.

Fitch Ratings expects India's electricity demand to drop by 4 per cent during the financial year ending March 2021 given the expectations of only a gradual pick-up in economic activity since pandemic-related lockdowns were relaxed in June.The fall in demand is likely to result in lower load factors, mainly for coal-based power plants. The weak demand along with higher coal inventory led to India's coal imports falling by 22 per cent year-on-year in H1 20.

Correctional facilities that resisted mass coronavirus testing for inmates erred in their decision to only test inmates with symptoms, leading to large initial undercounts, a recent study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention suggested.The study released this week examined 13 prisons and jails in California, Colorado, Ohio and Texas, and three federal prisons in states that weren't identified.Most of the institutions waited several days or weeks before the first identified case of COVID-19 and the beginning of mass inmate testing, the study found.

Total cases in the force stand at 13,180, including 2,389 active cases and 136 deaths.

He had tested positive for Covid-19 and undergone surgery for a brain clot at Army Hospital (R&R) on August 10.

Bill Cassidy, the Republican Senator from the US state of Louisiana, announced that he has tested positive for the novel coronavirus"I am strictly following the direction of our medical experts and strongly encourage others to do the same," Xinhua news agency quoted Cassidy as saying in a statement on Thursday.The Senator's office said he planned to begin a 14-day quarantine. Cassidy was notified on Wednesday night that he had been exposed to someone with the coronavirus and was tested on Thursday.

Australia headed for its lowest daily increase in coronavirus infections in five weeks on Friday as the hotspot state of Victoria neared the midway point of lockdown, prompting the prime minister to hail "a week of increased hope". While the rest of Australia eases restrictions, the home state of a quarter of its population is in a six-week lockdown due to a second wave of virus infections.

Australia's prime minister says his government has avoided a major second wave of coronavirus infections on the scale of France, Germany or Britain by limiting international travel.Prime Minister Scott Morrison described infection rates in those three countries as ``rather alarming.''He says they occurred because ``people left, went to areas on leave, on holiday, where the virus was moving again and now they're bringing it back.''

India's Covid-19 tally zoomed past 29 lakh, a day after it crossed 28 lakh, with a single-day spike of 68,898 infections, while the recoveries have increased to 21,58,946 on Friday taking the recovery rate to over 74 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The total cases of coronavirus infections mounted to 29,05,823, while the death toll climbed to 54,849 with 983 new fatalities being reported in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.