SINGAPORE, April 3 (Reuters) – London copper fell Friday on dampened investor sentiment as the coronavirus pandemic spread to infect over a million people, but the metal contract was still on track for its first weekly gain in six weeks.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) fell 0.2% to $4,889 a tonne by 0338 GMT.

On a weekly basis, London copper was on track for its first gain in six weeks, after better-than-expected factory data from China boosted prices earlier this week.

Still, the outlook for industrial metals demand remains grim as major economies including the United States brace for more infections.

“We expect volatility to continue playing out for metal prices in the coming weeks owing mainly to fragile investor sentiment on the back of a more widespread Covid-19 pandemic,” Fitch Solutions said in a note.

This was despite steadying metal prices in the last week as risk appetite had started to pick up slightly with positive PMI numbers from China, it added.

U.S. weekly jobless claims jumped to a record 6.6 million, double the record from the previous week, and the Federal Reserve said recession has arrived in the world’s biggest economy.

FUNDAMENTALS

* PRICES: LME lead eased 0.1% to $1,696.50 a tonne, tin declined 0.2% to $14,345 a tonne, while aluminium rebounded 0.9% to $1,504.50 a tonne after hitting a four-year low in the previous session.

* SHANGHAI PRICES: The most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose 1.4% to 39,680 yuan ($5,597.88) a tonne, while aluminium advanced 1.8% to 11,555 yuan a tonne, also rebounding from a four-year low.

* RIO TINTO: Rio Tinto Ltd said it could not supply contracted copper to its customers for reasons beyond its control after an emergency shutdown at its Kennecott smelter in the United States following an earthquake last month.

* COLUMN: Pressure builds on China’s raw materials supply chains: Andy Home

* CHINA: China’s services sector struggled to get back on its feet in March after a brutal month of unprecedented shop closures and public lockdowns amid the coronavirus pandemic, a private survey showed.

* For the top stories in metals and other news, click or ($1 = 7.0884 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Mai Nguyen; Editing by Richard Pullin and Shounak Dasgupta)