According to the WHO’s guidelines on clinical management, a patient can be discharged from hospital after two consecutive negative results in a clinically recovered patient at least 24 hours apart, it added.

Other than India, the World Bank forecast that Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh will also see sharp falls in economic growth.

Three other countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Maldives – are expected to fall into recession, the World Bank said in the report, which was based on country-level data available as of April 7.

Public health experts have warned the U.S. death toll could reach 200,000 over the summer if unprecedented stay-at-home orders that have closed businesses and kept most Americans indoors are lifted when they expire at the end of the month.

Expressing concern over health workers getting infected by the virus, the WHO DG said: “Every month, we will need to ship at least 100 million medical masks and gloves; up to 25 million N95 respirators, gowns and face-shields; up to 2.5 million diagnostic tests; and large quantities of oxygen concentrators and other equipment for clinical care.”

“To move these supplies around the world, the World Food Programme will deploy eight 747 aircraft, eight medium-sized cargo aircraft, and several smaller passenger planes to move humanitarian workers, technical staff, trainers and other personnel.”

The COVID-19 positive cases in the United States are now more than the other top countries taken together: Spain (158,000), Italy (147,000), Germany (122,000) and France (112,000).

New York, which has emerged as the epicenter of COVID-19 deaths, has registered over 1.7 lakh positive cases, which is more than any other country.

“Without a vaccine, we have to limit as much as possible contact with the elderly,” she told the Germany daily Bild.

South Korean health officials said it remains unclear what is behind the trend, with epidemiological investigations still under way.The prospect of people being re-infected with the virus is of international concern, as many countries are hoping that infected populations will develop sufficient immunity to prevent a resurgence of the pandemic.

The true number of lives lost is believed be much higher because of limited testing, cover-ups by some governments, and different counting practices. For example, in places like New York, Italy and Spain, many victims who died outside a hospital — say, in a home or a nursing home — have not been counted.

In an optimistic scenario, the WTO said global merchandise trade could fall 13% in 2020 and rebound 21% in 2021 — compared with a 0.1% contraction in 2019. In the optimistic scenario, gross domestic product could contract by 2.5% in 2020 and grow by 7.4% in 2021.

In a pessimistic case, the volume of global goods trade could drop by as much as 32% this year with the possibility of a 24% increase next year. In this situation, world GDP could shrink by as much as 8.8% in 2020 and expand by 5.9% in 2021.

Although the downturn is predicted to be short-lived, it’ll take time for economies to make up the lost ground. Even with unprecedented levels of monetary and fiscal stimulus, gross domestic product is unlikely to return to its pre-crisis trend until at least 2022.