COVID-19 cases

WHO spokeswoman Dr Margaret Harris said France, Spain, the UK, the Netherlands and Russia accounted for the majority of cases which increased by a third.

"The concern... is that intensive care units in hospitals are now beginning to fill with very ill people," she warned.

Russia reported a daily record of 320 deaths, pushing the tally to 26,589.

There has been a sharp increase in Italy too, with 221 fatalities announced in the past 24 hours. The total number of fatalities in Austria went above 1,000 on Tuesday.

To date, Papua New Guinea has 588 total confirmed COVID-19 cases. The National Capital District (NCD) has the highest number of cases with 342, followed by Western Province with 203. There are 14 provinces in the country that have reported cases.

“I remind all the provinces to continue and sustain your preparedness efforts. Use this opportunity to build your capacity and do not wait until a case is reported, ” Manning said. 

The boat is the suspected source of an infection in a New Zealand port worker.

Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles said all 19 crew aboard the Sofrana Surville have now been tested.

The ship was ordered to anchor off the coast of Mooloolaba instead of docking in Brisbane as planned.

The engineer's strain of Covid-19 had never before been detected in New Zealand, and has not been seen in Australia.

Christelle Lehartel said the Diademe High School will close after classes today and remain shut until the All Saints holidays.

External students who are boarding will be allowed to stay.

38 students, who have Covid-19 symptoms, are awaiting tests.

As of yesterday there were more than 1300 active Covid-19 cases in French Polynesia, with more than 200 new infections being recorded every day.

Europe reported 96,996 new cases, the highest total for the region ever recorded by the WHO.

Global deaths rose by 5514 to a total of 1.05 million.

The previous WHO record for new cases was 330,340 on 2 October. The agency reported a record 12,393 deaths on 17 April.

As a region, Europe is now reporting more cases than India, Brazil or the United States.

India reported 78,524 new cases, followed by Brazil at 41,906 and the United States with 38,904 new infections, according to the WHO, whose data lags the daily reports by each country.

The nation, the world's third-most infected, on Sunday reported 78,761 new cases in 24 hours, passing the number posted in the US on 17 July.

The rise comes as the government continues to lift restrictions to try to boost an economy that lost millions of jobs when the virus hit in March.

An upsurge of Covid-19 in many rural areas continues to be a major concern.

On Sunday, global infections passed the 25 million mark, with 843,000 deaths. The US remains the most affected nation, closing in on six million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University research.

The latest figures showed 10 people were in hospital, including two in intensive care.

The new outbreak has affected seven times more people than the first Covid-19 wave from March to June.

Covid-19 began to spread again after the government last month opened the border to boost tourism and abolished quarantine requirements for arriving travellers.

According to the government, about a dozen cases concerned tourists while the vast majority was the result of local transmission.

There were also two new cases in managed isolation.

There was no media conference today. In a written statement, the Health Ministry said 10 of the new community cases were clearly epidemiologically linked to the Auckland cluster.

It said six cases were linked to the Mt Roskill Evangelical Church, including four within the same household and two who attended church services.

Four other cases are contacts of previously reported confirmed cases.

Nearly 200 staff and students have been infected in the greater Seoul area over the past two weeks.

Remote learning will continue until 11 September, the Ministry of Education said.

Health authorities have warned that the country is on the brink of a nationwide outbreak.

All students in the greater Seoul area, home to over 25 million people, will now take classes online with the exception of those in their final year of high school who are due to take university entrance examinations in December.

The latest fatalities take the state's Covid-19 death toll to 438.

Yesterday's total of 116 new cases was the state's lowest in more than seven weeks .

It followed 209 new cases on Sunday and 182 on Saturday.

Premier Daniel Andrews is expected to give his regular daily update with details about the new cases later today.

Yesterday, he announced his Government would seek to change laws so that Victoria's state of emergency could be extended by another 12 months.