More than 10.6 million people around the world have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, over 5.6 million have recovered, and more than 514,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.

New US coronavirus cases rose by nearly 50,000, according to a Reuters tally, marking the biggest one-day spike since the start of the pandemic. More than half of new cases each day come from US states of Arizona, California, Florida and Texas, home to 30 percent of the country's population.

New Zealand's health minister, David Clark, resigned on Thursday, following recent slip-ups in the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and personal mistakes.

Italy's hard-hit northern region of Lombardy accounted for considerably more than half of the nation's latest confirmed 187 coronavirus cases - raising the total to 240,760 nationwide. The Health Ministry also reported 21 new deaths, raising to 34,788 the total of known deaths.