The coronavirus has spread to over 862,000 people in more than 180 countries and regions.
More than 178,800 people have recovered, while more than 42,300 have died, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.
Cases continue to soar in the U.S., the epicenter of the outbreak, where over 189,600 infections have been confirmed.
China, where the virus was first detected in the city of Wuhan, has seen nearly 90 percent of its nearly 83,000 infected population recover, while over 3,200 have died. More cases are reported outside China than within but the country has seen an increase in imported cases.
UK, France, Spain record highest daily death tolls
A record number of new deaths in a day were reported in the U.K., Spain and France.
Spain’s health ministry confirmed the country saw an increase of 849 deaths on Tuesday. Its current death count stands at 8,464, as of Wednesday. The number of confirmed cases jumped by nearly 11 percent to 94,417 on Tuesday, following 9,222 new positive cases, the health ministry confirmed.
“It’s true that today we have a slight increase in the number of cases,” said Maria Jose Sierra, Spain’s deputy health emergency chief. She noted Spain’s general downward trend of new cases “is continuing,” France24 reports.
France’s Director-General of Health, Jérôme Salomon, confirmed 5,565 people were in a serious condition and needing life support. The figure was up by 9 percent on Monday but the rate of increase was slightly slower than previous days, France24 reports.
The U.K. also reported a record 381 deaths in a day, which the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Michael Gove, described as “deeply shocking, disturbing, moving,” at a press conference on Tuesday. The latest jump brings the death toll to 1,789.
The latest fatalities include the country’s youngest reported death, that of a 13-year-old boy in London, King’s College hospital confirmed in a statement. The boy reportedly had no underlying health conditions.
The medical director of National Health Service (NHS) England, Stephen Powis, also noted there had been a “bit of a plateau” in the number of positive cases, a sign that the latest mitigation efforts in the country may be working. But he warned the latest signs of a slowing spread were “only green shoots and we must not be complacent and we must not take our foot off the pedal,” he said at the press conference.