CNBC Asia

COVID-19 has infected more than 1,579,600 people around the world as of Thursday, killing at least 94,500 people.

"There is a much bigger wave of protectionism in the near term that we should expect that is not just in medical supplies," said Deborah Elms, executive director at Asian Trade Centre.

"We're in a battle, right, but this is about a war," Cuomo said. "This virus is very, very good at what it does."

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is holding his daily press conference on the COVID-19 outbreak, which has infected more than 47,400 people as of Thursday.

" I would love it if some change could happen in May. But it may not be until June," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is holding his daily press conference on the COVID-19 outbreak, which has infected more than 151,079 people in the state as of Thursday morning.

"We care about the life passing every single minute unnecessarily because we couldn't unite to fight this virus," he said.

Birx said the New York metropolitan area, which includes Northern New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island, is still reporting roughly 11,000 new cases a day and that about 40% of all COVID-19 tests are positive.

Russia has reported a record one-day rise of 1,459 new cases of coronavirus Thursday, making the total number of confirmed cases to 10,131.

The U.S. has reported the world's highest number of coronavirus cases at more than 400,000, with over 14,000 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The comments by Australia's finance minister Mathias Cormann came after S&P Global Ratings downgraded the country's outlook to negative from stable.

The U.S. unemployment claims report for the week ended April 4 is set to be out at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday, with more than five million expected to have filed for unemployment last week as the country continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic..

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpassed 400,000 on Wednesday, according to figures provided by NBC, with 12,864 fatalities nationwide.

The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic could cascade from a health catastrophe into a financial crisis in countries struggling to cope, Singapore's trade minister warned on Thursday.

According to Charnvirakul, intensive measures announced last month have helped control the spread of the coronavirus but social distancing efforts needed to be stepped up.

As of Wednesday, COVID-19 has infected more than 1,504,900 people around the world and killed at least 87,984 people.

Trump complained Wednesday that China contributes "a small fraction" of the amount of funding the U.S. sends to the WHO every year.

President Donald Trump criticized the international agency's response to the outbreak, saying the WHO "really called, I would say, every aspect of it wrong."

Cuomo announced that 779 people in the state had died of the coronavirus – the highest daily death count yet.

"There are several groups that are conducting investigations in animals to really understand how pets are infected," WHO's Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove said.