Brazilian food company BRF SA said the potential closure of slaughterhouses due the spread of the novel coronavirus at meat production sites would make it impossible to keep output at current levels.
Spain will open gradually to tourism this summer, starting with European countries, and will ensure visitors only go to areas that have the coronavirus under control, Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said.
The World Health Organization is launching on Friday a new kit for school students aged 13-17 to alert them to the tobacco industry tactics used to hook them to addictive products. Every year the tobacco industry invests more than US$ 9 billion to advertise its products.
The coronavirus lockdown will ease next week for most of Britain's population, Boris Johnson announced on Thursday, as a row persisted over the prime minister's closest adviser taking a long-distance journey during lockdown.
Uruguay's Economy minister Azucena Arbeleche confirmed that the Inter American Development Bank had awarded the country a 1,7bn dollars soft loan to address the sanitary, social and economic emergency as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chile's government is struggling to control a coronavirus outbreak that could revive mass social unrest as its hospital system comes under increasing pressure. With a population of 18 million, Chile is reporting new Covid-19 cases at a pace comparable to that of Spain at the peak of the virus' spread in March, on a per capita basis, and resources are close to maxed out in Latin America's wealthiest economy.
The health system in Peru is on the brink of collapse, with public hospitals facing drastic equipment shortages amid a rising number of coronavirus cases. A University of Washington study has projected that Covid-19 deaths in Peru will reach nearly 20,000 by August, indicating that demand is likely to outstrip the supply of beds in intensive care units.
Brazil's death toll from the new coronavirus surpassed 25,000 on Wednesday, as the country emerged as the latest epicenter in the pandemic. The health ministry said it had confirmed 1,086 new deaths in the past 24 hours, the fifth time the daily toll has exceeded 1,000 since the crisis accelerated in Brazil a week ago.
Unthinkable just four months ago, the United States on Wednesday surpassed the grim milestone of 100,000 coronavirus deaths, as the pandemic tightened its grip on Latin America.
Brazilian federal police on Tuesday raided the residences of Rio de Janeiro Governor Wilson Witzel as part of a COVID-19 corruption probe, targeting one of President Jair Bolsonaro's political foes as the pandemic sweeps the nation.