UAE’s daily coronavirus count jumps above 1,000: Live updates

• Large crowds rallied in Auckland against the government’s social distancing restrictions imposed on New Zealand’s largest city.

• The United Arab Emirates reported 1,007 new cases of the coronavirus, its highest daily number since the pandemic broke out. The country conducted more than 95,000 tests and registered one death, 521 recoveries. 

• The United States’s budget deficit hit an all-time high of $3 trillion as a result of government spending to cushion the impact of the pandemic-triggered economic downturn.

• More than 28.4 million people around the world have been diagnosed with the coronavirus and more than 915,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. About 19.2 million people have recovered.

Here are the latest updates:

Saturday, September 12

10:25 GMT – UAE reports 1,007 new cases, highest since outbreak

The United Arab Emirates reported 1,007 new cases of the coronavirus, its highest daily number since the pandemic broke out. The country conducted more than 95,000 tests and registered one death, 521 recoveries.

Until last month, there had been a generally falling trend after the UAE’s new daily cases peaked at 994 in May, but numbers have surged from 164 cases on August 3.

#UAE Health ministry conducts further 95,287 #COVID19 tests, announces 1,007 new cases in 24 hours, 521 recoveries, one death #WamNews pic.twitter.com/zelyTSdrSF

— WAM English (@WAMNEWS_ENG) September 12, 2020

10:00 GMT – Hungary daily cases near 1,000, schools to stay open

Hungary’s daily new coronavirus cases reached a record 916, by far the highest since the onset of the pandemic as schools reopened and strict measures that helped contain the pandemic in the spring have yet to be reinstated.

Even as the number of cases rise, the number of people dying from the disease has remained fairly low, with only two elderly patients with chronic pre-existing conditions dying from complications of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours.

The government’s coronavirus task force said active cases reached 7,134, but Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who attended a session of the task force early on Saturday, said schools can stay open and life must go on.

09:50 GMT – Taiwan plans to sign up for ‘COVAX’ vaccine allocation scheme

Taiwan will sign up to the “COVAX” global vaccine allocation plan to ensure it will be able to access a COVID-19 vaccine when one becomes available, the island’s health minister said.

Chen Shih-chung told reporters in Taipei that the government had engaged lawyers to enter discussions about signing onto the scheme. Taiwan is also researching its own vaccine, a process Chen said was going smoothly.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the GAVI vaccine alliance are leading the COVAX facility, aimed at helping buy and fairly distribute vaccination shots against the novel coronavirus around the world.

08:45 GMT – Indonesia reports 3,806 new coronavirus cases

Indonesia has reported 3,806 new coronavirus infections and 106 new deaths, data from the health ministry website has shown.

Saturday marked the fifth consecutive day that Indonesia registered daily infections of more than 3,000, bringing the total number of cases to 214,746.

Total COVID-19 deaths rose to 8,650, the highest in Southeast Asia.

08:40 GMT – Philippines reports 186 more coronavirus deaths, record daily toll

The Philippines’ health ministry reported 186 more deaths related to the novel coronavirus, a new daily record and the highest single-day fatality rate recorded so far in Southeast Asia.

In a bulletin, the ministry said total deaths have increased to 4,292, while confirmed cases rose by 4,935 to 257,863. The Philippines has the most COVID-19 infections in the region.

08:35 GMT – Spanish princess quarantined after classmate diagnosed with COVID-19

Princess Leonor, the heir to the Spanish throne, has gone into quarantine after a classmate at her school tested positive for  COVID-19, the royal household said.

The 14-year-old daughter of King Felipe will be tested for coronavirus like other pupils in her class at the Santa Maria de los Rosales school in Madrid.

The king and Queen Letizia will continue their royal duties for the moment, a spokesman for the royal household said, as Spain struggles to control a surge in coronavirus cases.

07:20 GMT – Czech Republic reports record one-day rise in new cases

The Czech Republic reported its largest one-day rise so far of new coronavirus infections, recording 1,447 cases, according to health ministry data.

The country has seen one of the biggest spikes in cases among European countries in recent weeks.

It tightened restrictions on mask-wearing this week although it aims to avoid bringing back measures that would hurt businesses.

07:10 GMT – Crowds rally in New Zealand’s Auckland against lockdown

Large crowds rallied in Auckland against the government’s social distancing restrictions imposed on the country’s largest city after an outbreak of the novel coronavirus last month.

Local television footage showed tightly packed crowds, with many people not wearing masks, with estimates of the attendance varying in reports between a thousand and a few thousand people.

“We are all here today because we believe we need to stand up for our rights,” the public Television New Zealand cited Jami-Lee Ross, the leader of the Advance New Zealand party, one of the organisers of the protest, as saying.

07:07 GMT

Hello, this is Tamila Varshalomidze in Doha, Qatar, taking over the live updates from my colleague Zaheena Rasheed in Male, Maldives.

05:23 GMT – India reports record daily jump for second straight day

India reported a record daily jump in coronavirus cases for a second consecutive day, logging 97,570 new infections, according to data from the federal health ministry.

With total cases of more than 4.65 million, India is the world’s second-worst affected country, trailing only the United States, which has more than 6.4 million cases.

But the growth in infections in India is faster than anywhere else in the world, with cases surging through urban and rural areas of some large, populous states.

04:10 GMT – Australia coronavirus deaths pass 800

Deaths related to the novel coronavirus in Australia reached 803, but new daily infections in the country’s largest hotspot of Victoria continued to fall.

Victoria state reported six new deaths related to the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, bringing its total to 716, or more than 90 percent of all deaths in Australia.

However, new cases in the country’s second-most populous state continued to fall from a peak of more than 700 in a single day in early August. It reported 37 new cases on Saturday, its lowest since late June.

03:25 GMT – US budget deficit hits record $3 trillion

The US budget deficit hit an all-time high of $3 trillion for the first 11 months of this budget year, the Treasury Department said, as a result of the government’s massive spending to try to cushion the impact of a coronavirus-fuelled recession.

The deficit from October through August is more than double the previous 11-month record of $1.37 trillion set in 2009. At that time the US government was spending large sums to get out of the Great Recession triggered by the 2008 financial crisis.

With one month to go in the 2020 budget year, which ends on September 30, the deficit could go even higher. The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting the deficit this year will hit a record $3.3 trillion.

02:24 GMT – Canada reports zero COVID-19 deaths for first time since March

Canada reported zero COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours for the first time since March 15, according to public health agency data.

Canada’s death toll from the pandemic stood at 9,163 as of September 11, the same as the number of the deaths reported on September 10, government data showed. The number of positive cases rose by 702 to 135,626 on September 11 from the previous day, the data showed.

01:37 GMT – US expelled 8,800 migrant children under coronavirus rules

Donald Trump’s administration has expelled about 8,800 unaccompanied migrant children intercepted at the US-Mexico border since March 20 under rules seeking to limit the spread of the new coronavirus in the United States, according to court documents.

The Justice Department filing to the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals said the Trump administration had expelled 159,000 migrants overall, and 7,600 family units.

The border rules, implemented on March 21, scrap decades-old practices under laws meant to protect children from human trafficking and offer them a chance to seek asylum in a US immigration court.

01:09 GMT – Mexico tops 70,000 COVID-19 deaths

The confirmed coronavirus death toll in Mexico has surpassed 70,000 after the government reported 534 new deaths in the past 24 hours.

Making matters worse, excess mortality data from mid-March through early August indicates that the total number of deaths beyond the official count is likely tens of thousands higher.

Mexico also reported 5,935 new infections, bring its total caseload to 658,299.

00:35 GMT – UN General Assembly calls for solidarity to overcome pandemic

The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution on tackling COVID-19, calling for “intensified international cooperation and solidarity to contain, mitigate and overcome the pandemic”.

The resolution, adopted by a vote of 169-2, also urged member states “to enable all countries to have unhindered timely access to quality, safe, efficacious and affordable diagnosis, therapeutics, medicines and vaccines”.

The resolution, which is not legally binding was approved over objections from the United States and Israel, which protested against a successful last-minute Cuban amendment that strongly urges countries to oppose unilateral economic, financial or trade sanctions.

00:01 GMT – England’s coronavirus cases double every week

A study of coronavirus infection in England showed that the epidemic is doubling every seven to eight days, with an increase in positive cases in all age groups below the age of 65.

The finding came in a study of over 150,000 volunteers, who were tested between August 22 and September 7, by Imperial College London and polling firm Ipsos MORI.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the pandemic is “not over, and everyone has a role to play to keep the virus at bay”.

Separately, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, which advises the UK government, said the virus’s reproduction rate is now between 1.0 and 1.2, meaning anyone with the virus is infecting, on average, a little more than one other.

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m Zaheena Rasheed in Male, Maldives. 

For all the key developments from yesterday, September 11, go here.