Protesters defy lockdown rules as U.S. death toll tops 110,000

The coronavirus pandemic has now claimed more than 400,000 lives, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. More than a quarter of these were in the U.S., according to the NBC News' tally.

The grisly toll was reached after tens of thousands of people around the world defied COVID-19 lockdown restrictions to protest against the death of the death of George Floyd, a black man who died under the knee of a former Minnesota police officer last month. More protests are planned for Sunday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned about the dangers of such protests on Friday. He told told Washington D.C. radio station WTOP that he was “very concerned” about large crowds congregating in geographic areas where there is active infection transmission.

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Florida reported more than 1,000 confirmed cases on Saturday, the fourth straight day of cases hitting that threshold as the state continues with its reopening plan.

The Florida Department of Health reported 1,270 new cases Saturday and another 28 deaths, bringing the state's total to 62,758 cases. More than 5,000 cases have been confirmed in the state between Wednesday and Saturday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis chose to go ahead with the second phase of the state's reopening plan Friday despite the new numbers. As of Friday places such as movie theaters, concert houses, auditoriums, playhouses, bowling alleys and arcades can begin operating at a 50 percent capacity.

The 2022 soccer World Cup will go on as planned despite the coronavirus pandemic, host country Qatar said Saturday.

The event could be a "cure for the world," Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told the U.K.'s Sky News. Sky News and NBC News are both owned by Comcast. 

“Qatar is working very closely and strongly with different healthcare organizations to make sure to deliver a healthy and safe World Cup,” he said. 

He added the designs of the stadiums will comply with any changes to health and safety guidance as a result of COVID-19. The Gulf nation has so far reported more than 67,000 virus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

India reported 9,971 new virus cases Sunday in another biggest single-day spike, according to the Ministry of Health, a day before it prepares to reopen shopping malls, hotels and religious places after a 10-week lockdown.

India has now surpassed Spain as the fifth hardest-hit by the pandemic globally with 246,628 confirmed cases and 6,929 fatalities.

India has already partially restored train services and domestic flights and allowed shops and manufacturing to reopen. E-commerce companies have started to deliver goods, including those considered nonessential, to places outside containment zones.

South Korea recorded more than 50 cases for the second day in a row on Sunday as authorities continue to work to suppress a spike in fresh infections in the country's capital Seoul metropolitan area.

The additional 57 cases reported by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday took the country’s total to 11,776 cases, while the death toll has remained 273 deaths for the fifth consecutive day. The agency said 10,552 people have recovered.

South Korea’s high caseload peaked in early March, and aggressive tracing and testing prompted authorities to ease strict social distancing rules. The country has since seen an increase in new infections — mostly in the densely-populated Seoul region — linked to nightclub-goers and warehouse workers.

Chinese officials released a lengthy report on the nation’s response to the pandemic on Sunday, which defended the government’s actions and said that the country had provided information in a timely and transparent manner.

National Health Commission Chairman Ma Xiaowei said Sunday that a recent news media report that the Chinese government didn’t initially share the genome sequence for the virus “seriously goes against the facts.”

However, an Associated Press investigation found that government labs sat on releasing the genetic map of the virus for more than a week in January, delaying its identification in a third country and the sharing of information needed to develop tests, drugs and a vaccine.

The report entitled “Fighting COVID-19: China in Action” lauded China’s success in reducing the daily increase in new virus cases to single digits within about two months as well as the “decisive victory... in the battle to defend Hubei Province and its capital city of Wuhan” in about three months, according to state media. Wuhan — where the first cases of the new virus were detected late last year — was the hardest hit part of China in the outbreak.

Protests against police brutality after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis are "undoubtedly a risk" for increasing the spread of coronavirus, Britain's health minister said Sunday.  

"I support very strongly the argument that's being made by those who are protesting for more equality and against discrimination," Matt Hancock said in an interview with Britain's Sky News Sunday. "But the virus itself doesn't discriminate and gathering in large groups is temporarily against the rules, precisely because it increases the risk of the spread of this virus."

With the number of deaths in the U.K. now exceeding 40,000, London remains under partial lockdown, but mass gatherings are still banned and many businesses are still shuttered.  

"I would urge people to make their argument, and I will support you in making that argument," Hancock said. "But please don't spread this virus, which has already done so much damage and which we are starting to get under control."

Brazil removed months of data on its COVID-19 epidemic  from public view on Saturday, as President Jair Bolsonaro defended delays and changes to official record-keeping of the world's second-largest outbreak.

Brazil's Health Ministry removed the data from a website that had documented the epidemic over time and by state and municipality. The ministry also stopped giving a total count of confirmed cases, which have shot past 672,000 — more than anywhere outside the U.S. — or a total death toll, which passed Italy this week, nearing 36,000 by Saturday.

"The cumulative data... does not reflect the moment the country is in," Bolsonaro said on Twitter, citing a note from the ministry. "Other actions are underway to improve the reporting of cases and confirmation of diagnoses."

Bolsonaro has played down the dangers of the pandemic, replaced medical experts in the Health Ministry with military officials and argued against state lockdowns to fight the virus.

Neither Bolsonaro nor the ministry gave a reason for erasing most of the data on the government website, which had been a key public resource for tracking the pandemic. The page was taken down on Friday and reloaded Saturday with a new layout and just a fraction of the data, reflecting only deaths, cases and recoveries within the last 24 hours.

NEW YORK — Black Americans, who have suffered disproportionately from the coronavirus, have shown a more intense interest in news about the pandemic compared to whites. Those were the consistent findings in a Pew Research Center survey taken in late April when COVID-19 was dominating the news.

For example, 26 precent of blacks reported discussing the virus “almost all the time” with others, compared to 10 percent of whites who say that. Forty-eight percent of blacks told Pew they were closely following news about the local availability of coronavirus tests, compared to 25 percent of whites.

Similarly, almost half of black people questioned (47 percent) said they were following stories about local hospitals closely, while a quarter of whites (24 percent) said the same thing. Roughly half of blacks had an intense interest in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, with 34 percent of whites saying the same.

The margin of error in Pew's American News Pathways Project is plus or minus 1.5 percent.

As people took to the streets Saturday to decry the death of George Floyd the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States surpassed 110,000, according to NBC News' accounting of virus data.

The nation has seen 1,916,237 cases and 110,041 deaths related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the data. One month ago President Donald Trump, who has revised his estimation of the pandemic's death toll upward multiple times, said he believed it could reach 100,000 when all was said and done.

Johns Hopkins University of Medicine counts 6,804,044 cases worldwide and 362,678 deaths, with the United States leading in raw numbers for both categories.

On Saturday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose state has been hardest hit by the virus, said Friday's COVID-19 death toll of 35 marked a "record low" since the pandemic struck.

North Carolina reported 1,370 new cases of coronavirus on Saturday — the third straight day the state has set a record for new cases. 

State officials reported 1,189 new cases on Thursday and 1,289 on Friday.

The numbers bring the state's total coronavirus cases to 34,625, with 992 deaths, including 26 new deaths reported Saturday.

The spike comes more than two weeks after North Carolina lifted its stay-at-home rules, allowing for limited social gatherings and letting restaurants reopen to customers with reduced capacity.