MINSK, June 5. /TASS/. The number of coronavirus infections in Belarus increased by 887 in the past 24 hours to reach 46,868, while six more patients died from coronavirus-related causes, the national Health Ministry said Friday.
The number of recoveries has been exceeding newly confirmed cases for three days running, however, there is no steady declining trend as yet.
"There are 46,868 people who tested positive for coronavirus. Over the whole period of the infection spread in the country, 259 patients with a number of chronic health conditions and identified coronavirus infections died, while 22,066 people recovered," the statement reads.
Since late February when the outbreak began, Belarus conducted 597,013 coronavirus tests. At the same time, the Health Ministry has not revealed statistics by region for a few weeks now.
Belarus never imposed quarantine or lockdown measures to combat and curb the spread of coronavirus. At the same time, Belarus is advancing a presidential election campaign with the election scheduled for August 9. The World Health Organization (WHO) experts explicitly recommended that Belarusian authorities impose stricter social distancing and ban mass events, avoiding crowds, adding that Belarus is among top 5 European countries by newly confirmed coronavirus cases in the past two weeks. The European Union recently approved a list of nations cleared to enter the union for tourist, business and other purposes starting from early June 2020. Belarusians did not make the list as Brussels believes that the country’s epidemiological situation is unfavorable.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named COVID-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 6,714,300 people have been infected worldwide and more than 393,400 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 3,261,200 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.