The Latest on the coronavirus pandemic. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.

TOP OF THE HOUR:

— World Health Organization warns Brazil against reopening its economy before it can perform enough testing.

— California: churches can resume in-person services but congregations will be limited to less than 100.

— Vast majority of shops in England will be allowed to reopen next month

— World Health Organization said that it will temporarily drop hydroxychloroquine from its global study into experimental COVID-19 treatments.

— British PM's aide says he did nothing wrong with long drive during lockdown.

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RIO DE JANEIRO — The World Health Organization warned Brazil on Monday against reopening its economy before it can perform enough testing to control the spread of the pandemic.

The organization’s executive director, Michael Ryan, said in a news conference that Brazil’s “intense” transmission rates meant it should keep some sort of stay-at-home measures in place, regardless of negative impacts on the economy.

Rio de Janeiro’s Mayor Marcelo Crivella, an evangelical bishop, announced Monday he was including religious institutions in the list of “essential services.”

This means churches would be able to open their doors, while keeping a minimum two meters between attendees, in spite of existing recommendations for people to stay at home and most businesses remaining shut.

Meanwhile, Sao Paulo Gov. João Doria, ruled out a full-on lockdown in Brazil’s largest state economy and said he would start loosening restrictions on June 1.

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LOS ANGELES — California says churches can resume in-person services but the congregations will be limited to less than 100 and worshippers should wear masks, avoid sharing prayer books and skip the collection plate.

The state Department of Public Health released a framework Monday for county health officials to permit houses of worship to reopen. Most have been limited to online and remote services since March, when Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order took effect to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

With progress being made, Newsom has been relaxing those restrictions for restaurants, stores and other businesses.

Several thousand churches had vowed to defy Newsom’s order on May 31, which is Pentacost Sunday, a major holiday for many Christians.

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LONDON — The vast majority of shops in England will be allowed to reopen next month as the government gradually eases coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson says outdoor markets and spacious car showrooms can open from June 1 because the likelihood of transmission is low there.

Clothes stores, bookshops, tailors, auctioneers and other retailers will follow on June 15, as long as the number of infections continues to fall and the businesses can be made “COVID-19 secure.”

The other parts of the U.K. — Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — can set their own timetables.

Since a nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 23, only shops classed as “essential,” such as supermarkets, have been allowed to operate.

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MADRID — In a surprise announcement, Spain has corrected its official death toll from COVID-19, saying that almost 2,000 fewer people than previously thought have died from the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

A Health Ministry statement Monday said the death toll stands at 26,834 — down from the death toll published a day earlier of 28,752.

Fernando Simón, the director of Spain’s health alerts and emergency center, said the discrepancy was detected as officials sifted through and corrected data collected since the pandemic reached Spain.

Officials have deleted deaths counted twice and deceased people who were not cases confirmed by tests, for example. The quality of data being gathered has improved considerably, he said, adding that automated data collection had introduced errors.

However, the figures do not include the thousands of people who are believed to have died, especially in nursing homes, with symptoms attributable to the coronavirus, though unconfirmed.

Spanish regions have reported that the number of deaths in nursing homes, of both confirmed and suspected coronavirus cases, is close to 19,000.

The Health Ministry said 50 people died Monday, one of the lowest daily tolls in weeks.

Spain has officially recorded 235,400 cases, 246 of them new.

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COLUMBUS, Ga. — A 34-year-old Guatemalan detainee has become the second person reported to have died from COVID-19 while in federal immigration custody.

Santiago Baten-Oxlaj, who died Sunday in a Georgia hospital, had been awaiting his voluntary departure to his native country, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a news release.

Baten-Oxlaj had been held inside Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, where at least 16 detainees have tested positive for COVID-19, according to ICE.

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DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria’s state media says authorities have decided to lift a nighttime curfew imposed in March to limit the spread of coronavirus.

State news agency SANA reported late Monday that the curfew will be lifted as of Tuesday. It added that travel between the country’s governorates will be allowed to resume as well.

It said that it is possible to re-impose the curfew if needed.

Syria has registered 106 cases of coronavirus and four deaths.

Syria began recently easing restrictions imposed over the past weeks.

Earlier Monday, the Health Ministry reported 20 new cases of coronavirus in the country, the highest daily toll since the new virus was first reported here in late March. It said all the new cases were of Syrians who had returned from abroad.

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RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Department of Health has reported the second confirmed case in the state of a pediatric inflammatory illness associated with the new coronavirus.

The department’s website on Monday showed a second case of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children in the Fairfax Health District, which includes Fairfax County and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church. No other details, including the age of the child, were provided.

Officials confirmed the first case in the same district last week, saying at the time that the child was recovering at home.

While children have generally not experienced severe cases of COVID-19, health officials have warned recently of the new inflammatory illness related to the virus.

The Centers for Disease Control issued an advisory about the syndrome May 14, warning of symptoms including fever, abdominal pain without another explanation, diarrhea, vomiting, rash, red or cracked lips, bumpy tongue, and swollen hands and feet.

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BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Slovak citizens will be allowed to travel to eight countries, and not to face a mandatory quarantine and tests for the coronavirus if they return in 48 hours.

Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic says the move will become effective on Wednesday.

Those countries include the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany and Switzerland.

Previously, the Slovaks had to return in 24 hours if they traveled to those countries.

Matovic said Monday that Slovakia has been negotiating with those countries reciprocal deals to enable the Slovaks travel there without a negative test on the coronavirus or get quarantined and the citizens of the eight countries would also be able to travel to Slovakia without restrictions.

The first such deal between Slovakia and the neighboring Czech Republic becomes effective on Wednesday, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said.

Slovakia has only a total of 1,511 positive cases while 28 people died of COVID-19.

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ISTANBUL — Turkey’s health minister announced 29 new deaths from COVID-19, bringing the death toll to 4,369.

Fahrettin Koca also tweeted Monday 987 new infections were confirmed in the past 24 hours.

The total number of infections has reached 157,814.

More than 120,000 people have recovered and people needing intensive care continued on a downward trend, according to the health ministry statistics. The ministry has said its treatment protocol includes the early use of antivirals hydroxychloroquin and favipiravir, as well as the antibiotic azithromycin, along with high frequency oxygen.

Turkey ranks ninth in a tally by Johns Hopkins University, but experts believe the number of infections globally could be much higher than reported.

Turkey’s 83 million citizens are on the third day of a four-day nationwide lockdown.

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LONDON — The World Health Organization said that it will temporarily drop hydroxychloroquine — the malaria drug U.S. President Trump said he is taking — from its global study into experimental COVID-19 treatments, saying that its experts need to review all available evidence to date.

In a news briefing on Monday, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that in light of a paper published last week in the Lancet, that showed people taking hydroxychloroquine were at higher risk of death and heart problems than those that were not, there would be “a temporary pause” on the hydroxychloroquine arm of its global clinical trial.

“This concern relates to the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in COVID-19,” Tedros said, adding that the drugs are accepted treatments for people with malaria or auto-immune diseases.

Other treatments in the study, including the experimental drug remdesivir and an HIV combination therapy, are still being pursued.

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MILAN — The number of confirmed new cases of coronavirus in Italy jumped by just 300 in the past 24 hours while deaths rose by 92, according to new figures by the civil protection agency on Monday.

Only hard-hit Lombardy, the epicenter of Italy’s epidemic, reported new cases in the triple digits, but significantly lower than recent days at 148, and with just 34 deaths. Five regions had no new cases at all.

The numbers of confirmed cases in Italy are believed to be a fraction of the actual, as the testing regime covers only those hospitalized, those who show severe symptoms or those who have been in contact with someone who tested positive.

The number of known people currently positive is 55,300. It will be at least another week until it is seen if Italy’s easing of the lockdown — with restaurants, bars and shops open now for the second week — will provoke any new outbreaks.

Mayors in many major cities have complained of lax distancing practices and mask habits among people indulging in their newly reclaimed freedoms.

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LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s aide Dominic Cummings says he was in an “exceptional situation” and broke no rules when he drove 250 miles (400 km) to his parents’ house during a nationwide lockdown.

In an exceptionally rare televised statement, Cummings gave a detailed account of his movements in late March and early April, which have caused an intense political storm.

Cummings said he traveled so that extended family could care for his 4-year-old son if he and his wife, who were infected with the coronavirus, both fell ill.

His trip came after the government imposed a strict “stay home” order, and Cummings is being accused of flouting the rules he helped impose on the rest of the country.

Cummings insisted that “the rules … allowed me to exercise my judgment.”

He said “I don’t regret what I did,” though he acknowledged that “reasonable people” might disagree with his actions.

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TOKYO — Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday said the swift development of vaccines and effective treatments for COVID-19 are priorities towards achieving the Tokyo Olympics next year.

Abe said recovery from the coronavirus pandemic only in Japan would not be enough to hold the Games, because it involves spectators and athletes from around the world.

Abe reiterated that the government hopes to hold the Tokyo Games “in a complete form” — with spectators — as a proof of human victory against the coronavirus.

In late March, when the coronavirus became a global pandemic, Japan and the International Olympic Committee agreed to postpone the Games by one year to July 2021.

Experts say developing an effective and safe vaccine by the Games next year would be difficult. Abe acknowledged Monday that the fight against the virus “would be an endurance battle.”

Abe made the remark at a news conference Monday as he declared an end to a state of emergency across the nation.

Japan, with about 16,600 confirmed cases and about 850 deaths, has so far avoided a large outbreak like those experienced in the U.S. and the Europe despite its softer restrictions.

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