Coronavirus deaths top 270,000 worldwide

In total, 270,927 deaths have been reported across the globe from 3,877,772 confirmed cases.

PARIS (AFP) - The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 270,000 people worldwide since it began in China late last year, with more than 85 percent of fatalities in Europe and the United States, according to an AFP tally compiled from official figures at 1615 GMT on Friday.

In total, 270,927 deaths have been reported across the globe from 3,877,772 confirmed cases.

Europe is the most affected continent with 153,367 deaths and 1,678,485 cases. The United States is the country with the most deaths at 75,781, followed by Britain with 31,241, Italy 30,201, Spain 26,299 and France 25,987.

France reported another 243 coronavirus deaths on Friday, raising its total toll to 26,230, while the number of patients in intensive care continued to fall.

While the country has been one of the hardest hit in Europe, it has seen the daily death rate steadily drop and is due to start emerging from a strict lockdown on Monday.

In Friday s daily update, France reported 93 fewer patients suffering from the coronavirus in intensive care, dropping the total to 2,868. The figure rose above 7,000 at the peak of the country s epidemic in April.

Over the previous 24 hours, 111 coronavirus-linked deaths were recorded in hospitals and 132 in nursing homes.

Nationwide, there were 22,274 patients in hospital with COVID-19. The lockdown in place since mid-March will start to ease on Monday.

The Ile-de-France region around Paris, Hauts-de-France in the north, Grand Est in the east and central eastern Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes account for 72 percent of hospitalisations, according to authorities.

The first three, as well as the southeastern region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comte, still carry a red classification denoting heightened concern. In those areas the restrictions will lift more slowly.

New York child dies from rare disease linked to COVID-19

Meanwhile, a five-year-old boy in New York state has died from a rare inflammatory disease believed to be caused by the new coronavirus, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

"There have been 73 reported cases in NY (state) of children getting severely ill with symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease and toxic shock-like syndrome.

"On Thursday, a 5-year-old boy passed away from these complications, believed to be caused by COVID-19," Cuomo wrote on Twitter.

He added that the state s department of health was investigating and called on parents to seek care immediately if their child had a fever lasting more than five days.

Other symptoms include diarrhea or vomiting, breathing trouble, a paling of skin color, chest pain and lethargy, Cuomo said.

Kawasaki disease is a mysterious illness that primarily affects children up to the age of five and causes the walls of arteries to become inflamed, resulting in fever, skin peeling and joint pain.

A rash and swollen glands can also be a sign and if untreated patients can suffer health failure, but those who are given medical care respond well.

Britain s National Health Service first sounded the alarm last month, warning about a small rise in children infected with the coronavirus that have "overlapping features of toxic shock syndrome and atypical Kawasaki disease."

France, Italy and Spain has also reported several cases.

Treatment for Kawasaki disease involves intravenous immunoglobulin and aspirin and though frightening, most recover without serious issues.

While no link has been formally established to the new coronavirus, scientists believe it could be connected.

In an article published this week in the medical journal The Lancet, British doctors describing eight cases observed in London said it could be "a new phenomenon" affecting previously-asymptomatic children with the coronavirus "manifesting as a hyperinflammatory syndrome".

While youngsters can become infected with the new coronavirus, very few have died or contracted serious symptoms, something that had given solace to parents amid the deadly pandemic.

Cuomo said any confirmed link between COVID-19 and Kawasaki disease would be a worrying development.

"This would be really painful news and would open an entirely different chapter," Cuomo told reporters at his daily briefing Friday.

Earlier this week, Mayor Bill de Blasio said a rising number of cases in New York City was causing concern.

Of the first 15 confirmed cases in the Big Apple, four patients tested positive for COVID-19 and six who tested negative were found to have antibodies, suggesting they had previously been infected.

New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said a few cases had also been identified in Boston and Philadelphia.