By Zamira Rahim, Joshua Berlinger and Adam Renton, CNN
From CNN's Joe Sutton
At least 84,136 people have died in the US from coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University's latest tally. The organization said 1,390,764 cases had been recorded across the country.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
The US currently has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world.
CNN is tracking Covid-19's spread across the US here.
Fish at an aquarium in Cairns, Australia, are lonely and "moping around" as they lack interactions with visitors during the pandemic, staff told CNN affiliate Seven Network.
"We've normally got lots of people in the area, in the building, walking all over the place and [the fish are] very used to that interaction. In the moment, there's nobody here so that behavior has changed," said Dominic Waddell of the Cairns Aquarium.
"They can see outward as we can see in so they can see there is a [difference] in their environment so they've certainly changed their behavior," Waddell added.
"They're very used to people and even when the presenters come and do presentations every day, they often hang right above their heads... so there's this deliberate behavior where [the fish are] interacting with us, the staff, so they're not getting it right now so they're moping around looking for the presenters they see most days."
Australia banned public gatherings and non-essential travel in late March but the outbreak is now considered broadly under control. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a three-step plan to reopen the country's economy by July.
From CNN's Max Ramsay and Lindsay Isaac
Britain has approved a coronavirus antibody test developed by pharmaceutical company Roche and is now working towards acquiring enough kits for widespread testing.
UK health officials determined the tests were "highly specific," with an accuracy of 100%, in an independent evaluation, Public Health England (PHE) said in a statement to CNN.
“Last week, scientific experts at PHE Porton Down carried out an independent evaluation of the new Roche SARS-CoV-2 serology assay in record time, concluding that it is a highly specific assay with specificity of 100%,” said Professor John Newton, national coordinator of the UK Coronavirus Testing Programme.
“This is a very positive development because such a highly specific anti-body test is a very reliable marker of past infection,” he said.
“This in turn may indicate some immunity to future infection although the extent to which the presence of anti-bodies indicates immunity remains unclear.”
Scientists believe antibodies provide a degree of immunity from future coronavirus infection, though it has not been determined how long such immunity lasts.
Edward Argar, a UK health minister, said Roche's test “appears to be extremely reliable” and “has the potential to be a game changer” in a television interview with the BBC.
The British government had entered discussions with Roche about acquiring the tests, Argar said. He added that the government was not in a position to roll out the tests yet, but was working on distributing them as quickly as possible.
Roche has previously said its antibody test can provide a result in approximately 18 minutes. It is an in vitro test, using human serum and plasma drawn from a blood sample, and must then be run in a Roche analyser.
The company's antibody test has also been authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration.
From CNN's Isaac Yee in Hong Kong
Health officials in China said Thursday that they will be stepping up coronavirus testing and screening countrywide amid growing concern of a domestic rebound in cases.
“We need to expand Covid-19 testing and screening to quickly find the source of infections and prevent a resurgence in coronavirus cases,” said Song Shuli, a spokesperson for the National Health Commission.
The announcement comes after both Jilin and Liaoning provinces in the northeast of the country reported new locally transmitted cases this week.
Earlier on Thursday, Chinese state media reported that the city of Wuhan, ground zero for the Covid-19 pandemic, had begun a “10-day battle” to test all 11 million of its citizens for coronavirus after the public health authorities identified six locally transmitted cases.
Analysis from CNN's Luke McGee in London
The UK's coronavirus crisis has reignited one of the country's most bitter political debates: Can the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland survive as a union of four nations?
On Sunday night, Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the country from 10 Downing Street in a recorded message, announcing his plan for the UK to emerge from lockdown.
He called on millions of people to return to work, and gave a rough outline of when schools and shops might reopen over the comings months. He also shifted his government's core message from the simple "Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives" to the more ambiguous "Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives."
But before Johnson's message was even broadcast, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon delivered her own address. In doing so, she revealed the uncomfortable reality that Johnson has little practical power over the people living in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
It was, of course, her right to do so. "For around 20 years, the government of the UK has only really been the government of England in huge areas of policy," says John Denham, a former Labour lawmaker and professorial fellow on English identity at the University of Southampton.
Since the late 1990s, Westminster has ceded much power to legislative bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, allowing devolved governments to set domestic policy in areas such as health and education.
So it is little surprise that Sturgeon was confused when Johnson began talking about the opening of schools, among other things, on Sunday night. "Discussing schools, for example, he used year group terms that don't even make sense in Scotland. It wasn't at all clear in the statement what guidance applied to the whole UK and what applied to England specifically," says Nicola McEwen, professor of territorial politics at the University of Edinburgh.
Sources inside Downing Street have told CNN that Johnson himself thought the message was confusing. "Filming was a total nightmare. He was stopping and starting, asking to change bits, complaining about the length, saying it was all too complex," said one government source who was not permitted to speak on the record.
Read the full analysis:
From CNN's Darya Tarasova in Moscow and Nathan Hodge
Russia recorded 9,974 new cases of Covid-19 over the past 24 hours, the country’s coronavirus headquarters said in a statement today.
That marks the first time in 12 days that the country has reported fewer than 10,000 new daily cases.
Russia has officially reported 252,245 total cases of coronavirus. The country has the second-highest number of confirmed cases in the world after the United States, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
From CNN's Sandee LaMotte
The constant stress of living in the age of coronavirus is affecting more than your mental health and emotional coping abilities. It's likely taking a toll on your body as well.
"We're living in a sea of stress hormones every day," said stress management expert Dr. Cynthia Ackrill, an editor for "Contentment" magazine, produced by the American Institute of Stress.
"We're not designed for a constant application of these chemicals," Ackrill said. "The stress hormone cortisol just ravages our bodies when it's dumped into our system repeatedly."
Designed to keep you functioning throughout the day, cortisol levels are meant to rise in the morning and decrease as the day lengthens. The hormone's purpose is to maintain blood sugar levels to keep your brain and muscles functioning and suppress non-vital systems like digestion that might drag your energy down.
But when triggered by a stressful occurrence, cortisol levels suddenly spike, and can take hours to dissipate. If that stress is constant, those levels don't drop, leading to cortisol malfunction and a disease-causing boost in inflammation.
"Inflammation is behind diabetes. Inflammation is behind heart disease. It's behind all of the autoimmune diseases. It's behind asthma and allergies, and the list goes on," Ackrill said.
If you're genetically at risk or you already have an inflammatory condition, today's constant stress may well trigger or worsen your symptoms.
Read more:
From CNN's Leah Asmelash
An American pilot died when her plane malfunctioned while she was on her way to deliver Covid-19 rapid test kits to a remote Indonesian village, officials said.
Joyce Lin, 40, had just taken off Tuesday morning, leaving the airport in Sentani, in Papua province, in a Kodiak aircraft. She was a missionary with the Mission Aviation Fellowship, serving as a pilot and an information technology specialist.
She'd been with the MAF for about three years, according to the organization.
Lin was attempting to fly to Mamit, in the Papua highlands, in an effort to bring test kits to the local clinic. Within minutes of takeoff, she reported an emergency.
The aircraft fell into Lake Sentani, and divers confirmed she did not survive, according to the MAF. She was the only one aboard the plane. The MAF said it is working with local authorities to investigate the incident.
Lin had worked in Indonesia for two years, and joined the MAF after more than a decade of work as a computer specialist.
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The novel coronavirus has infected more than 4.3 million people worldwide, bringing countries to a standstill. The global death toll is closing in on 300,000.
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