The United States remains the most affected country with 7.9 million cases and a death toll in excess of 216,000. India is second with 7.2 million infected and 110,500 deaths, while Brazil has the second-highest death toll (over 151,700) and at least 5.1 million coronavirus cases.
Follow Sputnik's Live Feed to Find Out More!
Germany has confirmed 7,334 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours marking the largest daily increase since the start of the outbreak, with the total count reaching 348,557, the Robert Koch Institute said on Friday.
The death toll has grown by 24 to 9,734 people within the same period of time. More than 284,000 people have recovered since the start of the outbreak.
A day earlier, the country confirmed 6,638 new coronavirus cases and 33 fatalities.
The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 38.8 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 1.09 million fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.
US President Donald Trump said during a town hall meeting that state-wide lockdown imposed by several US governors to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is unconstitutional.
"The fact is we're winning all these cases because it's unconstitutional what they're doing and I think they're doing it for political reasons," Trump said.
Trump also said his opinion on wearing masks has not changed after contracting COVID-19.
The US president added that he has been okay with wether people wear masks or not.
Biden also said defunding police would be wrong. More police mean less crime.
He also said he would establish a group compries of law enforcement, sociual workers and minoritries to look into communcity policing.
The number of COVID-19 cases in the United States reached 8 million on Thursday, an increase of 1 million in less than a month, as another spike in incidence hit the country with the onset of colder weather.
Argentina has confirmed 17,096 new cases of the coronavirus across the country within the past 24 hours marking the largest daily increase since the start of the outbreak, with the total number of people infected with COVID-19 having reached 949,063, the national Ministry of Health said.
"Today, 17,096 new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed, bringing the total number of [COVID-19] positive tests in the country to 949,063," the ministry said in a daily bulletin on late Thursday.
The death toll from the coronavirus in Argentina has increased by 421 to 25,342 people within the same period of time.
The number of recovered patients has reached 764,859, the ministry added.
The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 38.7 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 1.09 million fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Albania has registered 257 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours marking thus the largest daily increase since the start of the outbreak, the national Ministry of Health said.
“Within the past 24 hours, 257 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the number of active cases has reached 5,909. Since the start of the pandemic, 16,212 people have been infected, 439 patients have died,” the ministry said in a statement on late Thursday.
According to the statement, the number of new cases continues to rise and has surpassed 200 per day for the first time.
The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 38.7 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 1.09 million fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Brazil has registered 713 additional COVID-19 fatalities on Thursday and 28,523 new cases, according to the nation's health ministry.
The South American country now has 152,460 total coronavirus deaths and 5,169,386 total official cases.
Italy should counter the rapid resurgence of COVID-19 by shoring up control measures in public transport and schools, former Italian minister of health Girolamo Sirchia told Sputnik.
On Tuesday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte signed a decree making face masks mandatory in all outdoor public areas and imposing a midnight curfew for restaurants in a bid to counter the resurgence of the virus to Europe's once worst-hit country.
While saluting the new measures as "quite well-balanced," Sirchia said that the national response could be further reinforced by addressing the regulations for public transport and higher grade schooling.
"The problem of transport ... is another very important problem because the trains in the cities are still full. This is another point that must be scrutinized," the ex-minister said.
Pointing out that only universities in Italy have switched to distant learning while schools continued with business as normal, Sirchia said: "Maybe we need to reconsider this, reconsider that the last grades of high schools can also stay at home."
Italy used to be Europe's worst affected country when the coronavirus first appeared on the continent. Following a brief easing of restrictive measures in Italy during the summer, the fall brought a resurgence of cases. On Wednesday, Italian health authorities confirmed 7,332 new cases per day, marking the highest ever daily increase for the country.
As of Thursday, Italy's toll of coronavirus cases reached 372,799, including a death toll of 36,289 people.
Moscow has registered 54 deaths of patients infected with COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, bringing the Russian capital's death toll to 5,850, the city's coronavirus response center said in a statement on Thursday.
"Another 54 patients, who were diagnosed with pneumonia and tested positive for the coronavirus infection, died in Moscow," the center said.
In the previous day, 57 people infected with the coronavirus died in Moscow.
The Rome Film Festival started on Thursday with a screening of the Pixar animated film "Soul", which is about a jazzman's dreams, in the shadow of the lingering coronavirus pandemic that has transformed film watching in public.
Three Jewish communities in Rockland County are suing New York State and New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, stating that he was involved in a "streak of anti-Semitic discrimination" with the recent restriction on religious gatherings in order to reduce the state's COVID-19 spread.
The results of the World Health Organization clinical trial showed that remdesivir had no substantial effect on a patient’s chances of survival.
The drug also has little effect on how long patients stays in hospital.
“These remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir and interferon regimens appeared to have little effect on in-hospital mortality,” the WHO’s clinical trial found.
However, the researchers said the study was primarily conducted to examine the impact on in-hospital mortality. The research has not yet been peer-reviewed.
France registered 30,621 new coronavirus cases over the past day, a new one-day high, the country's public health agency said on Thursday.
Over the past 24 hours, 88 people have died from the coronavirus in the country, the agency added.
Prior to that, the largest number of detected COVID-19 cases per day was just above 26,000. On Wednesday, almost 23,000 new cases were reported.
The total number of cases since the beginning of the epidemic in France has exceeded 809,000, including 33,125 fatalities.
The World Health Organization is looking forward to seeing more information and clinical trials data on all COVID-19 vaccine candidates developed by Russia, a spokesperson for the WHO Regional Office for Europe told Sputnik, after Russia granted a regulatory approval to its second COVID-19 vaccine.
"We look forward to receiving more information and trial data on all candidate vaccines in the Russian Federation," the spokesperson said in an email.
"Based on the Russian Federation’s long tradition in the area of vaccine production and development, we are confident that the global standards for testing including data sharing with the global community will be upheld," the spokesperson added.
WHO also thanks Russian authorities for sharing the results of the clinical trials of its first COVID-19 vaccine, according to the spokesperson.
Austria has confirmed 1,552 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, the highest daily increment since the start of the pandemic, and the overall tally surpassed 60,000, the country's interior ministry said on Thursday.
According to the ministry, almost a third of newly-registered cases — 480 — were detected in Vienna. Overall, the country has confirmed 60,224 COVID-19 cases, 877 related deaths and over 46,000 recoveries.
Austria, like many other European countries, is experiencing a sharp rise in the infection rate since early September.
At the same time, Austrian Health Minister Rudolf Anschober previously denied rumors of a second coronavirus-related quarantine starting on October 26.
The number of COVID-19 cases has increased by a record 919 and the overall number of infected reached 14,440 people, the governmental COVID-19 monitoring site said on Thursday.
"Confirmed coronavirus cases - 14440, recovered -7367, fatal outcome - 113," according to the site's data.
Georgia has been facing a rapid growth of COVID-19 infections since late summer. When the pandemic was only gaining its momentum, the daily amount of infected citizens did not exceed 10 people, but now hundreds of COVID-19 cases are registered every day.
According to medical specialists, such a high daily growth can be explained by an increased number of conducted COVID-10 PCR testings (8,000-10,000 per day). The highest daily increase (680 cases) was recorded on Wednesday.
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris canceled her travel plans till next Monday after two people associated with the Biden campaign tested positive for COVID-19, the campaign manager Jen Dillon announced on Thursday.
Joe Biden’s running mate was not in close contact with either of the individuals - a non-staff flight crew member and Liz Allen, her communications director - during the two days prior to their diagnosis and therefore does not need to quarantine, according to the statement.
“Regardless, out of an abundance of caution and in line with with our campaign’s commitment to the highest levels of precaution, we are canceling Senator Harris’s travel through Sunday, October 18th, but she will keep a robust and aggressive schedule of virtual campaign activities to reach voters all across the country during this time,” Dillon said.
Harris has taken two PCR tests for COVID-19 recently, the latest one on Wednesday, and all were negative. According to the campaign, she was on a flight with both individuals, but wore a mask and never approached them closer than six feet for more than 15 minutes.
The UK capital of London will move into tier 2 of the government's new three-tiered COVID-19 alert system from Saturday due to a recently observed surge in new cases, Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Thursday.
The decision was taken after officials observed a steady increase in the number of people in London with the disease requiring hospitalization and treatment in intensive care, the mayor said.
"That is why, following discussions between me, ministers and our city's senior health advisers and council leaders, the Government will move London into tier 2 restrictions – alert level high – from the start of Saturday," Khan said.
The new measures will mean that members of different households will no longer be allowed to mix in indoor spaces, including pubs and restaurants. Additionally, Khan urged Londoners to limit the number of journeys they make.
Khan added that the failure of the UK government's NHS Test and Trace contact tracing service had also contributed to the new measures being needed.
"There are no good options. I know these further restrictions will require Londoners to make yet more sacrifices, but the disastrous failure of the test, trace and isolate system leaves us with little choice," Khan wrote.
Projections suggest that prolonged relaxed COVID-19 policies could lead to daily mortality in January being four or five times higher than in April, WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge said Thursday.
"Projections from reliable epidemiological models are not so optimistic. These models indicate that prolonged relaxing policies could propel by January 2021 daily mortality at levels four to five times higher than what we recorded in April," Kluge told a virtual press briefing.
However, the same projection models suggest that simple measures, such as systematic wearing of masks at 95 percent rate from now instead of less than 60 percent currently seen as well as strict control over social gatherings can "save up to 281,000 lives by February 1 across our 53 member states region."
"Under proportionally more stringent scenarios, the model's reliable is much more optimistic, yet with slightly higher levels of morbidity and mortality than in the first wave, but with a lower slope - as if we should rather expect a higher and longer swell instead of a sharp peak giving us more reaction time," Kluge said.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced on Thursday that the British government will impose stricter COVID-19 social restrictions on London, which will be moved into the "tier 2" or "high risk" level in the new three-tier system.
"We've together agreed that London needs to move to local COVID alert level 'high'", Hancock explained.
Police raided the homes and offices of France's ex-PM, the health minister, and a number of prominent officials on Thursday as part of a probe into the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to BFM TV.
Health Minister Olivier Veran, his predecessor Agnes Buzyn, former PM Edouard Philippe, former government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye, and current public health director Jerome Salomon were also targeted by the raids, BFM added.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet will impose tougher COVID-19 restrictions on London from midnight on Friday, The Times reported, saying that the alert level will be moved from medium to high.
The three-tier or "traffic light" system, announced by Boris Johnson earlier this week is based on rates of infections in certain areas.
Tier 1 is a medium level which applies to the majority of England and prohibits gatherings above 6, also imposing a 10 p.m. closing time for pubs. Tier 2, or the high alert level, includes those areas which were previously under restrictions, including Nottinghamshire, east and west Cheshire, as well as a small area of High Peak. Tier 3, or the very high alert level stipulates the strictest measures for the places worst hit by the pandemic. Households mixing in the affected areas is banned entirely and all pubs and bars are closed.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia has registered 13,754 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, down from a record-high of 14,231 yesterday, taking the cumulative case total to 1,354,163, the country's coronavirus response centre said on Thursday.
"In the past 24 hours, Russia has confirmed 13,754 COVID-19 cases in 85 regions, of which 3,427 (24.9 percent) were detected with people showing no clinical symptoms", the response centre said in a statement, specifying that the total count has reached 1,354,163.
"We are still at a moment when we must expect that the number of infections will rise for some time and that this increase will be significant", the PM's Chief of Staff Michal Dworczyk told the TVN 24 broadcaster.
