BEIJING, China (AFP) — China said yesterday that relations with the United States were “on the brink of a new Cold War”, fuelled in part by tensions over the new coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly 350,000 people worldwide and pitched the global economy into a massive downturn.

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was yesterday forced to defend his top aide Dominic Cummings, accused of having breached the Government's own lockdown rules.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said yesterday that Washington had been infected by a “political virus” to continually attack China, but that Beijing would nevertheless be open to an international effort to find the coronavirus source.

While European nations initially among the hardest hit have started to ease lockdowns in a bid to salvage economies and lifestyles, other countries such as Brazil, where deaths have surged, are emerging as new centres of the pandemic.

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa, meanwhile, said yesterday that a controversial ban on the sale of alcohol would be lifted for home consumption when the country moves into level three of a five-tier coronavirus lockdown next month.