Despite the alarming figure, WHO says "there are green shoots of hope." In New Zealand, after more than 100 days without transmission, a Christchurch retirement village has gone into lockdown. Catch up on the latest.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/F. Kästle
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The number of coronavirus infections in the world has surpassed 20 million, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The US, India and Brazil account for nearly two-thirds of global cases.
Health experts believe the actual number of infections is much higher, given that as many as 40% of people who contract the coronavirus have no symptoms and testing capacity is limited.
"Behind these statistics is a great deal of pain and suffering," World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "But I want to be clear: There are green shoots of hope," he added.
"It's never too late to turn the outbreak around," according to the expert.
Europe swelters under heat wave amid coronavirus pandemic
Western Europe is seeing record-breaking temperatures of nearly 40 degrees Celsius as people flock to cool off at beaches and lakes. There are concerns about COVID-19 social distancing in popular tourist spots.
Image: picture-alliance/L. Perenyi
Germans love the lake
This weekend temperatures have exceeded 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in some parts of the country. With many Germans on summer holiday and some foreign travel restrictions still in place, authorities feared that people heading to lakes would not respect social distancing. However, crowds at Germany's lakes were somewhat smaller than expected.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. von Ditfurth
Fire risk across Germany
Such hot temperatures and little or no rainfall mean that most of the country is under a fire risk warning. Despite this, German people are taking the opportunity to barbecue. There are warnings for storms in the coming days across the country.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. von Ditfurth
England sees record-breaking heat
In parts of the UK, temperatures are up to 36 degrees Celsius, the hottest August temperatures recorded for almost 20 years. Cases of COVID-19 remain high in Europe's worst-affected country, but many revelers still headed to popular seaside resorts like Brighton to enjoy the water.
Image: picture alliance / ZUMAPRESS.com
Belgium — without tourists
Travel warnings are in place for all or part of Belgium for many European countries, including Germany, after coronavirus cases spiked in the province of Antwerp. Belgians nevertheless took the opportunity to head to the beach as temperatures reached the high 30s.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/F. Seco
France triggers heat wave alert
Shortly after Paris made face masks for all compulsory this week, the French capital saw a heat wave alert system put in place by the government. Tourists are being urged to respect social distancing and continue wearing masks despite the heat.
Image: picture alliance / Xinhua News Agency
Not quite Baltic temperatures
Back in Germany, authorities in the state of Schleswig-Holstein called for beach visitors to keep respecting social distancing. Many feared that beaches would be overwhelmed. School summer holidays are drawing to a close and families took the chance to have a dip in the Baltic Sea — normally a place synonymous with freezing temperatures.
The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, famous among other things for having a happiness index rather than an economic index to guide its government, ordered its first nationwide lockdown on Tuesday. Authorities imposed the measure when a resident returning from Kuwait tested positive for coronavirus after being discharged from quarantine following a negative test there. The 27-year-old woman was said to have come into close contact with other people in the capital, Thimphu. Under the lockdown, all schools, institutions, offices and commercial establishments will remain closed.
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Despite being heavily reliant on tourism as a source of income, Bhutan banned tourists in March after a US visitor tested positive. It also ordered everyone returning from abroad to go into quarantine for three weeks. The country so far has had a total of 113 cases of infection, the lowest rate in South Asia, while no one there is recorded to have died of COVID-19.
Indonesia announced it would launch the third phase of a vaccine candidate from Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech. Indonesian President Joko Widodo said the vaccine would be mass produced by the state-owned Bio Farma starting January 2021 if the trial was successful.
Meanwhile, South Korea's Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co Ltd said it received Indian regulatory approval to test its anti-parasitic niclosamide drug to treat COVID-19 patients in an early-stage human trial.
The first trial, approved by India's Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), will involve around 30 healthy participants and begin this month. Daewoong is testing the drug in partnership with New Delhi-based Mankind Pharma Ltd, which will continue the second and third phases of trials in India on mild and severe COVID-19 patients.
South Korea opens schools despite coronavirus resurgence
South Korea is setting the standard as lockdown restrictions are eased around the world. With masks, hand sanitizers and regular temperature checks, students are returning to classrooms for a delayed spring term.
Image: picture-alliance/Photoshot
Delayed spring term
A young boy holds his mother's hand from across a barrier as he returns to school for a delayed spring term in Gwangju, South Korea. The government has initiated a phased reopening of schools across the country even as it sees a surge in the number of coronavirus cases in recent days.
Image: Reuters/Yonhap News Agency
Disinfected classrooms
The image shows classrooms being disinfected by quarantine workers before students enter the premises of a school in Seoul. In the first phase of reopening, high school seniors returned to classes on May 20 for a session that was meant to begin in March this year.
Image: Reuters/Yonhap News Agency
Ensuring student safety
Teachers check partition walls installed to ensure students' safety as they return to classrooms in Daegu, South Korea. In late February, the city of Daegu reported the first large coronavirus outbreak outside of China, resulting in a huge spike in South Korea's COVID-19 infections.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Yonhap News Agency
Maintaining hygiene
A school student is putting sanitizer on her hands after coming back to school last week. The second phase of reopening, initiated on June 3, involved students in their first year at high school and second year at middle school and in the third and fourth years in elementary school.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/L. Jin-Man
Temperature checks
Students wait in line as staff conduct temperature checks with a thermal imaging camera in Chungju, South Korea. The latest phase of reopening has brought nearly 1.8 million children back to school.
Image: Reuters/Yonhap News Agency
Physical distancing is must
Guidelines mandate that desks are placed in a manner that allows for physical distancing. In many cases, schools are putting up partitions to prevent the spread of the virus. South Korea has seen a resurgence of cases linked to gatherings at night clubs, churches and warehouses in recent days. This has led to the imposition of stricter regulations.
Transparent dividers installed at a primary school cafeteria in Chuncheon, South Korea. The Education Ministry said that 519 schools have been forced to go back to remote learning, as government guidelines direct that all students and staff members have to return to distance learning if an infection is confirmed.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Yonhap News Agency
Masks always on
A physical education class in progress with students wearing masks at a high school in Gwacheon, South Korea. In addition to regular sanitizing and multiple temperature checks between classes, students are required to keep their masks on at all times, except when they are eating.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Yonhap News Agency
Tremendous pressure
An elementary school student being welcomed by teachers in animal costumes in Daegu. An inordinate amount of pressure for implementation lies on the shoulders of teachers, who must join the students in using an online self-diagnostic system to record their own temperatures before classes. South Korea currently has under 12,000 confirmed cases.
Russia declared itself the first country to approve a COVID-19 vaccine, with President Vladimir Putin saying the vaccine conferred "sustainable immunity." At least 5.7 billion doses of the vacccine, Dubbed Sputnik V after the Soviet-era satellite, have been pre-ordered worldwide. But the WHO said the vaccine still needed a rigorous safety review.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 infections in Germany increased by 966 to 217,293, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed. The reported death toll rose by four to 9,201.
On Sunday, German Economy Minister Altmaier said the country is seeing an "alarming" rise in infections after Germany registered more than 1,000 cases per day for three days in a row earlier last week.
As the school summer holidays come to an end, the number of new COVID-19 infections is on the rise again in Germany, as in many European countries.
Despite the surge, kindergartens, schools and educational institutions are being reopened.Schools in the capital of Berlin and the most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia returned full-time on Monday.
Meanwhile, the German foreign ministry has extended its travel warning to two more regions in Spain due to rising infections.
Madrid and the Basque Country have been added to the Spanish regions of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarra, as places where unnecessary trips should be avoided.
A retirement village in New Zealand has gone into lockdown after residents showed symptoms of respiratory illness, the New Zealand Herald reported.
The Village Palms retirement home in the South Island city of Christchurch informed of the lockdown in a letter to relatives, the newspaper said.
The news comes as New Zealand recently announced it had gone more than 100 days without community transmission of the coronavirus.
In Papua New Guinea, Prime Minister James Marape said that the two-week lockdown in the capital of Port Moresby would be lifted from Wednesday, despite reported cases of the coronavirus doubling over the past week.
"Whilst the spread is there, we have to adapt to living with COVID-19 this year, instead of taking on drastic measures," Marape told a news conference.
Papua New Guinea had a total of 214 cases and three deaths as of Sunday, the WHO reported, adding that it was likely the real infection numbers were much higher given testing "remains critically low."
