US government statement regarding the reception of needed medical equipment from Russia

The US bought out a planeload of Chinese-made face masks right on the tarmac just as the haul of the much needed protective gear was about to set off for France, the head of a French region told RT.

The local authorities will now have to stick to major logistics companies, Muselier said, to ensure that the haul is not outbid or bought out in the loading area again. He added that the delivery is now expected later this week.

The Americans are trying to procure any masks already available, disrupting deliveries to other nations, another report by French daily Liberation indicated.

“They pay double and cash, even before seeing the goods,” an anonymous source told the newspaper.

https://www.rt.com/news/484723-us-france-face-masks/

BBC: UK government admits only 2,000 out of 500,000 NHS staff have been tested for COVID-19

Stats for indicated countries for today. Included are:
New cases, total cases, new deaths, total deaths, new recoveries and total recoveries for all countries.

Edit: updated image for better readability.

Timeline of COVID-19 cases 22.01.2020-02.04.2020

Today we have crossed the threshold of 1,000,000 cases and 50,000 deaths.

Just yesterday we had passed the milestone of 900,000 cases.

Global cases continue to rise at an above average rate due particularly to the rise in detected cases in the United States.

Lockdown Imposed in China's Henan Province After Fresh Cases Emerge

Curfew-like measures came into effect on Tuesday, with some 600,000 people told to stay home, the county government's Weibo account said.

Henan is a province immediately to the north of Hubei, the province where the city of Wuhan is located (origin of the coronavirus).

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/coronavirus-henan-04022020155235.html

Edit: updated with a provincial map of China

Last year, NSO responded to that claim by saying that its products were "licensed for the sole use of providing governments and law enforcement agencies the ability to lawfully fight terrorism and crime".

"The software is here to solve a global pandemic," a spokesman told the BBC.

"This is about giving governments the ability to understand the situation they're facing and make informed decisions. It's a really powerful piece of software."

Zooming in, individual phones of people with the infection were mapped, and represented by an anonymised ID number. Details were also shown of other phones they had encountered and the relevant times and locations.

The engineer demonstrating the system said that it could be used to:
- predict where the next cluster of cases was likely to be
- when to move ventilators to hospitals most in need
- when to allow certain regions of a country to come out of quarantine

NSO said a number of governments around the world were piloting the system, but would not reveal their identity or whether any of them had started using it in the field.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52134452

🇺🇸 BREAKING: New York state reports 10,482 new cases of coronavirus and 397 new deaths in morning update, raising total to 102,863 cases and 2,935 dead. @COVID19Up

Specific country stats for 03.04.2020. US records a record rise in number of new cases (29,759 at the time of posting).

A chart for the US in the past week will be next followed by global stats.

Edit: updated image

United States COVID-19 cases stats for the period 27.03.2020-03.04.2020.

In this period of 8 days the US went from having 104,126 total cases to 265,506 cases, the greatest rise in number of cases in the world.

Timeline of global COVID-19 cases in the period 22.01.2020-03.04.2020 - today there have been 77,616 new cases and 6592 new deaths across the world.

Cases continue to rise at an above average rate due to the discovery of new cases in the US.

Trump to defy 'voluntary' advice for Americans to wear masks

US President Donald Trump has said he will not wear a face mask despite new medical guidance advising Americans to do so.

He could not see himself greeting "presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens" in the Oval Office while wearing one, he said.

He stressed that the guidance released on Friday was "voluntary".

"You do not have to do it," he said. "I don't think I'm going to be doing it."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52161529