The United States recorded nearly 2,000 novel coronavirus deaths for a second day in a row, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University as of 8:30 pm Wednesday (0030 GMT Thursday).

 A sizeable chunk of the 29 million doses of hydroxychloroquine bought by the US to combat the coronavirus pandemic is from India, President Donald Trump has said as he acknowledged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was "great" when he sought his help to allow the sale of the anti-malaria drug to treat the growing number of COVID-19 patients in America.

Tens of thousands of people in Wuhan, the origin point and epicentre for the coronavirus pandemic, began travelling out of the sprawling city on Wednesday as China lifted its 73-day lockdown, even as the number of fresh COVID-19 cases crossed 1,000 in the country and two new deaths heightened concerns of a rebound in infections.

The number of deaths in the US due to the coronavirus on Tuesday crossed 12,700, with a record 1,900 fatalities in a single day, as President Donald Trump sought to assure a grieving nation that new data projections reveal fewer deaths than originally thought.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday declared a month-long state of emergency in Tokyo and six other parts of the country over a spike in coronavirus cases.

Scores of Indian Americans have tested positive with the novel coronavirus and several of them have died, according to multiple news reports from community organisations and diaspora leaders from across the US, currently the global epicentre of the deadly disease.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was in hospital due to persistent coronavirus symptoms, has been shifted to the intensive care unit after his coronavirus symptoms "worsened", Downing Street has said.