Nearly 9 Million Infected As WHO Says Outbreak Still “Accelerating” Following Largest Daily Jump: Live Updates

The international community kicked off the summer with some disturbing news from the WHO: the NGO’s tally of newly reported cases showed that Sunday marked the biggest single-day jump in new cases since the outbreak began, with most of these cases coming from North and South America.

As the WHO insisted that the virus is still “accelerating” which it warned about last week, Brazil reported more than 50k new cases in a single day – a record unmatched even by the US – while the worsening outbreaks along the American Sun Belt (which encompasses parts of the South and West) contributed more than 30k cases, nearly half the international daily total.

The record 183k+ jump in new cases helped rattle investor confidence overnight, as US stocks looked set to build on last week’s losses after the bell.

As Florida and Texas officially surpass NYC as the virus epicenter of the US, the country’s largest city on Monday entered the official start of ‘Phase 2’ of its reopening plan.

The US hasn’t reported more than 31k cases in a day since May 1.

As the number of new cases in the US, Mexico, Brazil and India spirals out of control, a growing body of research suggests the virus likely started to circulate in and around Wuhan, and even in some areas in Europe and the US, as early as October or September. Now, according to a report in the LAT, California officials are slowly reexamining deaths in cases of unexplained respiratory failure or inflation to see if a mysterious syndrome impacting children might have caused any of the deaths.

The deaths date back as early as November, more than two months before the first documented coronavirus death in the US was confirmed on Feb. 6. China’s first “confirmed” case was identified in Wuhan on Dec. 8, with the onset of symptoms believed to have occurred around Dec. 1.

As Spain enters the last phase of its reopening plan, which includes reopening the country’s tourism industry for the first time in more than 3 months, Dubai authorities announced late Sunday that the country would once again be allowing in tourists starting on July 7, while allowing locals to begin traveling again as early as Monday. Travelers visiting the country will however need a clean bill of health.

Spain will decide this week which visitors from outside Europe can enter as it welcomes back travellers from neighbouring nations in an effort to revive a tourism industry hammered by the coronavirus lockdown, a minister said.

While the US death toll topped 120k and the Brazilian death toll topped 50k over the weekend, worldwide, at least 8.9 million people have been confirmed to be infected. At least 4.4 million have recovered, while more than 467,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins data.

A growing list of US states and countries, from California to Bulgaria, have been mandating that masks be worn indoors, while Kazakhstan plans to impose a two-day lockdown in the northern city of Kostanay, along with four nearby towns next weekend after a jump in fresh COVID-19 cases.

As India continues to report record numbers of new cases, the outbreak in neighboring Pakistan continued in the top 10 countries for daily coronavirus-case increases, with 4,471 new cases on Sunday, bringing its tally to 181,088 to date, according to government data. At least 89 people died of the virus on Sunday, taking its death toll to 3,661.

After a handful of American MLB players tested positive over the weekend, Serbia just announced that five players on the champion Serbian football squad Red Star Belgrade have tested positive for the coronavirus.

In the UK, officials are finally moving away from uncomfortable swab tests to “no-swab” saliva tests, which are being trialed in Southampton, southern England, and could result in a simpler and quicker way to detect outbreaks of the virus, the UK government said.

Meanwhile, Johnson on Monday is set to unveil his government’s latest lockdown easing plan and the results of a review of the “2-meter rule” on Tuesday, with rumors about the possibility that the gov’t will swap this out for a “one-meter rule”.

Furthermore, UK Health Secretary Hancock suggested customers may need to register when visiting pubs and restaurants, while it was separately reported that the UK government may announce foreign travel could resume from July 4.

The mayor of Seoul said Monday that he fears the country is losing control over the virus, and will reimpose stronger social-distancing measures if the daily jump in infections does not come below an average of 30 cases over the next three days, which is lower than the most recent daily numbers reported.

“If Seoul gets penetrated (by the virus), the entire Republic of Korea gets penetrated,” Park Won-soon said in a televised briefing. He also lamented what he described as complacency of citizens in social distancing, citing an increase in public transportation usage that he says has been approaching last year’s levels in recent weeks.

Russia reported 7,600 new cases on Monday (remember, cases are reported with a 24-hour delay), pushing its nationwide case total to 592,280, the world’s third-largest tally.

Hong Kong recorded around 30 new imported COVID-19 cases on Monday, marking the largest daily jump in two months, per the SCMP. Officials in Beijing, meanwhile, touting a “cliff-like” drop in new cases by the end of this week with efforts to control the spread of infections in the Chinese capital underway, said an “expert” from China’s national health authority. The city of more than 20 million people reported its first case linked to a wholesale food market on June 11. So far, 236 people have been infected in the worst outbreak in Beijing since COVID-19 was identified. Beijing reported just nine new cases for Monday so far, a sharp drop from 22 a day earlier.