Sharpest rise in coronavirus cases in July

The coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 565,000 people out of nearly 13 million registered cases worldwide, has been accelerating sharply since the start of July, according to a count carried out by AFP from official sources.

The three biggest daily worldwide increases in new cases were seen on Saturday (more than 230,000), Friday (more than 225,000) and Thursday (nearly 220,000).

Since July 1, nearly 2.5 million new cases have been officially declared, a record level since the outbreak was first reported in China in December. The number of declared cases worldwide has doubled in just a month and a half, according to the report.

The United States (3,247,782 cases), Brazil (1,839,850), India (849,553), Russia (727,162) and Peru (322,710) account for more than half of the global total.

Worldwide, a total of at least 12,736,737 infections, including 565,151 deaths, have been recorded.

Europe is the most affected continent in terms of fatalities, with 202,396 out of 3,355,128 cases while the hardest-hit country the United States has registered 134,815 deaths.

President Donald Trump appeared on Saturday for the first time publicly wearing a mask, as more than 66,000 new cases were recorded in the United States, according to the Johns Hopkins University, a new daily record.

In Florida, where nearly one in six of those new infections were recorded, the Walt Disney World theme park partially reopened after four months of shutdown prompted by the virus.

Latin America and the Caribbean is the region where the disease is surging the most, with more than 76,000 new cases registered on July 11.

Elsewhere, French officials warned of rising cases in metropolitan France as the death toll there topped 30,000.

Hungary's government barred travel from Africa, most of Asia apart from China and Japan, and restricting entry from several European countries after worldwide spikes in cases.

Australia's Victoria state marked a week of triple-digit increases in new infections yesterday, while a community outbreak in neighbouring New South Wales (NSW) has put the state on high alert.

LANKA CANCELS RALLIES

Sri Lanka's ruling party yesterday called off its rallies ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections and delayed the international airport's reopening over a surge in virus cases.

The South Asian country of 21 million lifted its lockdown in late June after declaring there was no longer any community spread of the virus.

But a swathe of cases emerged last week, including an outbreak at a drug rehabilitation centre that saw 253 patients tested positive in a single night.

India yesterday registered a record increase in the number of cases, taking the total number of affected people in the country to nearly 850,000, the world's third-highest, and prompting authorities to re-impose partial lockdowns in some densely populated areas.

Federal health ministry data showed that more than 27,100 new cases were reported in the previous 24 hours, while the death toll increased to 22,674, after 551 people succumbed in a day.

Iran's supreme leader yesterday called the resurgence of the coronavirus in the country "truly tragic" and urged all citizens to help stem what has been the region's deadliest outbreak.

"Let everyone play their part in the best way to break the chain of transmission in the short term and save the country," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a video conference with lawmakers, according to his office.

INDONESIA OUTBREAK

Nearly 1,300 people at the Indonesian Army Officer Candidate School in the country's most populated province of West Java were tested positive and quarantined, with 30 initially hospitalised with mild symptoms, an official said.

Of the 1,280 confirmed infections, 991 are cadets and the rest are staff and their family members. Most have no symptoms.

On Friday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on countries to adopt an aggressive approach to tackling the virus, citing successful mitigation efforts in Italy, South Korea and elsewhere.

"Only aggressive action combined with national unity and global solidarity can turn this pandemic around," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted a decision to allow bars and other businesses to reopen may have come "too soon" after his country reported a record 1,500 new infections on Friday.

In Hong Kong, a spike has marked a setback for the city after daily life had largely returned to normal, with restaurants and bars resuming regular business and cultural attractions reopening.

Schools in the city will be closed from today after the city recorded "exponential growth" in locally transmitted infections.