WHO records highest one-day increase in COVID-19 cases

By Vatican News

The World Health Organization registered more than 183,000 new cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the highest single day increase since the pandemic began.

The number of COVID-19 cases in the Americas continues to grow, with Brazil already dealing with more than one million cases. As of Sunday, more than 50,000 people in the country are believed to have died from the virus.

Brazil has the second most known cases of the coronavirus, following the United States. In the U.S., more than 2.3 million people have been infected, and the nation has seen over 120,000 deaths from the virus.

With almost six hundred thousand cases, Russia has the world’s third largest tally.

Latest medical developments

In medical developments, the British government has said they are testing a weekly “no-swab” saliva test that could result in a simpler and quicker way to detect outbreaks. In the United States, the National Institute of Health has said it has halted a clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine for treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Meanwhile an Israeli company expects a fabric it has developed will be able to neutralise close to 99% of the coronavirus, even after being washed multiple times, following a successful lab test.

Worldwide, almost nine million people have been reported to have contracted the disease, and as of Monday morning, approximately 470,000 people have died. Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.