Issued on:
China on Monday reported its highest number of coronavirus cases in three months, part of a worrying swell of second and third-wave infections that are hitting Asia and Europe.
Advertising
Read more
Australia has been rocked by its deadliest surge since the start of the pandemic, Hong Kong is experiencing record daily numbers and Spains caseload has tripled in the last fortnight.
Meanwhile, other regions are still battling their first waves after never getting the virus under control: the US alone has recorded almost 4.23 million cases of COVID-19, while infections in Latin America and the Caribbean surged on Sunday to briefly overtake North Americas total for the first time.
Worldwide the confirmed case count has passed 16 million, although experts believe that figure is vastly short of the true number. One study in New Delhi found a quarter of people tested had contracted the virus, amounting to 4.7 million in the Indian capital alone.
China—where the coronavirus was first reported in December last year—recorded 61 cases on Monday, the highest daily figure since April.
The second-wave surge was propelled by clusters in separate regions, and authorities have declared “wartime mode” lockdown measures to combat the spread of the deadly contagion.
Most of the 57 new domestic cases were in the far northwestern Xinjiang region, where an outbreak in the regional capital Urumqi occurred in mid-July.
A second programme of mass testing was launched Sunday in the city of 3.5 million people to check residents who had previously tested negative, with 2.3 million people screened so far.
Belgian govt meeting over tightening coronavirus measures
Chinese authorities have also rolled out mass testing for hundreds of thousands in the northeast port city of Dalian where a fresh cluster broke out last week.
Deadly new waves
Australia on Sunday suffered its deadliest day since the pandemic began, with 10 fatalities and a rise in new infections despite an intense lockdown effort.
And on Monday the country recorded its highest number of daily cases of at least 549, more than Wednesdays high of 501 with some states still to report their numbers.
Daniel Andrews, premier of Victoria state where the latest outbreak is centred, begged anyone sick to stay at home.
In Hong Kong, which seemingly had a lid on local transmissions for weeks, new infections have snowballed sparking fears the latest outbreak is spreading out of control.
More than 1,000 infections have been confirmed since early July—more than 40 percent of the total since the virus first hit the city in late January. Eighteen people have died.
The city said it will stop most ships from changing crews in the densely populated territory from Wednesday to cut back on quarantine exemptions blamed for causing a third wave of cases.
And Spain, where more than 28,400 have lost their lives, has also witnessed a recent surge in cases with nearly 1,000 on both Thursday and Friday, although the government insisted the country was safe to visit anRead More – Source
[contf] [contfnew] 
france24
[contfnewc] [contfnewc]
