The World Health Organization's coronavirus dashboard yesterday showed a third consecutive daily record high in the number of new confirmed cases. 

The WHO's complete figures for Saturday showed that 465,319 cases were confirmed to the UN health agency during the day, topping the 449,720 recorded on Friday and the 437,247 logged on Thursday.

The WHO has warned that some countries are on a "dangerous track", with too many witnessing an exponential increase in cases. Within each week, the pattern of cases being reported to the WHO tends to spike towards Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and dip around Tuesday and Wednesday.

According to the WHO's figures, there have been more than 42.3 million confirmed cases of the respiratory disease, while nearly 1.15 million people have lost their lives, including 6,570 on Saturday.

Nearly half of Saturday's new cases were registered in the WHO's Europe region, which logged a one-day record high of 221,898 cases.

In total, more than nine million cases have now been registered in the region. "We are at a critical juncture in this pandemic, particularly in the northern hemisphere," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference on Friday.

"The next few months are going to be very tough and some countries are on a dangerous track. "Too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases and that is now leading to hospitals and ICU (intensive care units) running close or above capacity -- and we're still only in October.

 "The WHO urged leaders "to take immediate action, to prevent further unnecessary deaths, essential health services from collapsing and schools shutting again," he said.

Italy yesterday tightened its anti-virus curbs despite opposition from regional chiefs and street protests.

Under the new rules coming into force today and running until November 24, cinemas, theatres, gyms and swimming pools must all close while restaurants and bars have to stop serving at 6:00 pm.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez yesterday declared a national state of emergency yesterday, and a curfew covering all of Spain except the Canary Islands, in a bid to curb a second wave of coronavirus cases.

The new state of emergency will last until the beginning of May, Sanchez added. "The situation we are going through is extreme," he said in a televised address following a cabinet meeting convened to discuss the crisis.

The emergency measures came in response to calls from the regions for powers to impose curfews to fight the surge in coronavirus cases, after Spain on Wednesday became the first European country to record more than a million casees of the virus.

The United States saw a record high number of new daily Covid-19 cases for the second day in a row on Saturday, figures from Johns Hopkins University showed, as warnings grew over its spread.

The country reported 88,973 new infections between 8:30 pm Friday and 8:30 pm Saturday, the figures showed, substantially above the previous day's 79,963.

A total of 8,568,625 cases have been reported in the United States with 224,751 deaths, the highest in the world in absolute terms.

The worst current outbreaks in the country are in the north and midwest, and some 35 of the 50 states are seeing an increase in case numbers.

The number of deaths over 24 hours has remained broadly stable since the beginning of autumn, with between 700 and 800. On Saturday the US recorded 906 deaths, the Johns Hopkins tracker showed.

Marc Short, the chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence, has tested positive for the new coronavirus, a spokesman for the vice president said on Saturday.

"Vice President Pence and Mrs. Pence both tested negative for COVID-19 today, and remain in good health," said Devin OMalley, adding that Pence would maintain his scheduled "in accordance with the CDC guidelines for essential personnel."