Europe

MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/: Russia’s Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology has formed a preliminary group of volunteers aged between 18 and 60 for preclinical trials of vaccine against the novel coronavirus, researcher Natalya Dumchenko has said.

Vector Director General Rinat Maksyutov said in early April that preclinical tests will begin in early May and last until June 22. The vaccine has already been tested on animals.

MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/: People diagnosed with acute respiratory viral infections will have to obey by the same lockdown rules as those diagnosed with the coronavirus infection. Their movements will be traced with the use of geolocation technologies, as follows from the Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s decree issued on Tuesday.

LONDON (Reuters) - The impact of the coronavirus at the end of March was probably large enough to cause Britain’s economy to shrink in the first quarter of 2020 as a whole, Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane said in a podcast released on Tuesday.

Haldane said he expected a sharp economic contraction in the second quarter and also echoed comments from fellow policymakers Ben Broadbent and Silvana Tenreyro that recovery may prove slow whenever coronavirus restrictions are lifted.

LONDON (Reuters) - Benchmark Brent and U.S. oil futures for June delivery plunged to around two-decade lows on Tuesday, a day after U.S. May futures sank into negative territory for the first time in history as demand tumbled due to the coronavirus crisis.

Brent for June delivery LCOc1, known as the front-month contract after the May futures contract expired, fell to as low as $18.10, its lowest since November 2001. At 1200 GMT, it was down 18% at $20.98.

PARIS (Reuters) - The collapse of crude oil prices threatens the global economy as it is already struggling to cope with the fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Tuesday.

“The oil price collapse is a danger for the global economy,” Le Maire told the French Senate as he a presented a budget update to take account of the impact of the outbreak.

He said African countries highly dependent on oil revenues were particularly exposed to the drop in prices.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Mosques in Germany that depend on donations from Friday prayers face bankruptcy as the coronavirus lockdown strips them of their only source of income, which peaks during the month of Ramadan that starts this week.

After five weeks of closure, some have launched online appeals urging members to donate via bank transfers.

But Imam Mohamed Taha Sabri, who runs the Dar Assalam mosque in Berlin’s Neukoelln district, said an online campaign had produced only a trickle of donations.

LONDON (Reuters) - The true extent of Britain’s COVID-19 death toll was more than 40% higher than the government’s daily figures indicated as of April 10, according to data that put the country on track to become among the worst-hit in Europe.

The Office for National Statistics said it recorded 13,121 deaths by April 10 in England and Wales, which account for the vast majority of Britain’s population, compared with 9,288 in the government’s daily toll for those who died in hospital.

The ONS figures include deaths in care homes and hospices as well as in hospitals.

MOSCOW, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that although the country is managing to slow the spread of COVID-19, its peak is yet to come.

"Now we need to do everything to smooth out this peak, to shorten the transit time through the so-called plateau," Putin said in an online conference with officials, scientists and doctors.

He said the situation remains difficult as the virus has spread to all the country's 85 regions.

PARIS, April 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France’s nearly two-month-long coronavirus lockdown is expected to cost the country some €120 billion in lost revenue while “forced savings” are estimated to reach €55 billion, the state-funded French Economic Observatory said.

“During the lockdown, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was cut by 32 percent, corresponding to five points of GDP for the whole of 2020,” the state-funded French Economic Observatory (OFCE) wrote.

GENEVA, April 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization insisted that it sounded the alarm on the novel coronavirus right from the very start and had hidden nothing from Washington about the deadly pandemic.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there were no secrets at the UN agency after being blasted by the United States for allegedly downplaying the initial COVID-19 outbreak in China.

“We have been warning from day one that this is a devil that everyone should fight,” Tedros told a virtual briefing in Geneva.