Global death toll crosses 700,000

NEW YORK－Deaths from the coronavirus pandemic surpassed 700,000 worldwide on Wednesday, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

With the global case count reaching 18,554,658, the death toll stood at 700,896, the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at the US university said.

The United States and Latin America, the epicenters of the pandemic, are struggling to stem the spread of the virus.

The US has recorded 4,771,846 cases with 156,839 deaths, making it by far the worst-hit country.

But US President Donald Trump has adopted a resolutely optimistic tone.

"We're seeing indications that our strong mitigation efforts are working very well, actually, especially to protect those who are most at risk," he said during a White House news conference addressing the pandemic on Tuesday.

Deborah Birx, the head of the White House coronavirus task force, warned that the country has entered a new phase in the spread of COVID-19.

"What we are seeing today is different from March and April," she said, adding that the virus "is extraordinarily widespread".

The world's hope of ending the current cycle of outbreaks and lockdowns rests on a vaccine, but the World Health Organization said governments and citizens should focus on what is known to work: testing, contact tracing, maintaining physical distance and wearing a mask.

Latin America surpassed Europe on Tuesday to become the region with the highest coronavirus death toll, according to a Reuters tally.

The region has now recorded more than 206,000 deaths, about 30 percent of the global total, with more than 5 million infections.

Brazil has been driving the regional surge with 2.75 million cases, and close to half the region's deaths. In the region's second-hardest-hit country Peru, daily cases have almost doubled from 3,300 to 6,300 since bus and air travel resumed a month ago, according to official figures.

Resurgence of cases

There has been a resurgence in countries that had previously brought their outbreaks under control, including Australia, where sweeping new restrictions kicked in for the hard-hit state of Victoria on Monday.

They include a nighttime curfew in the state capital Melbourne for the next six weeks, with the city ordering nonessential businesses to close, and a ban on weddings.

In the Middle East, the region's worst-hit nation Iran reported its highest single-day infection count in nearly a month, and officials warned that most provinces were facing a resurgence.

The country on Tuesday recorded 2,751 new cases, taking the total number of infections to 314,786, Sima Sadat Lari, a spokeswoman for the health ministry, said at a daily update.

According to the official IRNA news agency, Lari said that the nation's death toll from the virus rose to 17,617 after 212 new deaths were added.

The impositions the pandemic has put on daily life have sparked protests on nearly every continent.

In the German capital Berlin, thousands rallied over the weekend against virus restrictions, with farleft and far-right demonstrators joined by those supporting widely debunked conspiracy theories.

The protesters－who shouted "We are the second wave" on their "day of freedom"－were mostly not wearing masks, which the German government blasted as "unacceptable".

On Monday, the country was watching anxiously as 150,000 children returned to school in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany's first state to restart full-time classes after the summer holidays, with infection numbers on the rise again.

The number of cases in Germany increased by 741 to 212,022, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Wednesday.

In neighboring France, Prime Minister Jean Castex urged the nation "not to let down its guard" as surging cases led the Riviera resort city of Nice to become the latest to mandate outside mask-wearing during the summer holiday season.

"The virus has not gone on holiday and neither have we," Castex said.

Agencies - Xinhua