US daily cases break world record

The United States saw a record number of new coronavirus infections for the second day running on Friday, with just over 100,000 new infections reported just days before voters decide if President Donald Trump should remain in the White House. 

The skyrocketing caseload helped push the US tally past nine million cases reported since the pandemic began, while Europe topped 10 million and France entered a new lockdown.

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 1,189,892 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 11:00 GMT yesterday. At least 45,650,850 cases of coronavirus have been registered. 

On Friday, 7,365 new deaths and 558,737 new cases were recorded worldwide. Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 919 new deaths, followed by India with 551 and France with 545.

The daily caseload of 100,233 in US is also a world record for the global pandemic, surpassing the 97,894 cases reported by India on a single day in September. On Thursday the country reported more than 91,000 cases. The United States is the worst-affected country with 229,710 deaths from 9,048,177 cases.

Hospitals across the country were bracing as cases soar in nearly every state and winter flu season looms.

In Europe, Belgium became the latest European country to tighten restrictions as virus numbers surge across the continent, which recorded 41 percent more cases this week than the previous seven days, according to an AFP tally.

Europe is now recording 241,000 new cases a day -- compared to 15,000 at the start of July -- and represented roughly half of last week's global infections.

Some 14 European countries meanwhile registered a record number of hospitalizations linked to the virus this week.

Italy posted its own daily infection record on Friday, fueling debate about whether it should follow France into a national lockdown.

Belgium, which has the most Covid-19 cases per capita in the world, said it would impose tighter lockdown rules from tomorrow, closing non-essential businesses and restricting household visits.

France's 65 million people woke on Friday to a new lockdown, largely confined to their homes and needing written statements to leave.

But some medics voiced fears that steady traffic and appreciable numbers of people on public transport in Paris showed the public was not taking the lockdown as seriously a second time round.

A total of 49,215 new cases were recorded over 24 hours in France, according to official figures on Friday.

Nottingham became the latest of a swathe of cities across central and northern England to enter the highest tier of local restrictions Friday, with the 2.4 million residents of Leeds set to follow suit next week.

In the Czech Republic lawmakers voted to extend a state of emergency until November 20, while Iceland ordered bars and nightclubs closed and limited public gatherings to no more than 10 people.

But there has been resistance to measures to stop the virus, with clashes between protesters and police erupting on Friday in the Spanish city of Barcelona against new restrictions.

The virus also continued its march through Latin America and the Caribbean, with the region passing 400,000 deaths on Friday, according to an AFP tally.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said Friday that international experts had held their first meeting, albeit virtually, with their Chinese counterparts in order to investigate the animal origins of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The UN health agency sent an advance team to Beijing in July to lay the groundwork for the probe, but it has remained unclear when the larger team of scientists would be able to travel to China to begin epidemiological studies to try to identify the first human cases and their source of infection.