Latest On Coronavirus

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th October, 2020) As of Sunday evening, the global COVID-19 tally stands at nearly 42.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Over 28.8 million patients have recovered, and nearly 1.2 million have died since the onset of the pandemic.

In the United States, which has the highest tally, new cases have topped 83,700 for a second day in a row, taking the total to 8.6 million.

India and Brazil, which come next on the list, have reported 50,129 and 26,979 new infections, respectively.

Russia, the fourth-worst hit country, has registered 16,710 cases in the past 24 hours, down from Friday's record 17,340, pushing the cumulative total beyond 1.5 million.

France, which is steadily catching up with Russia, updated its tally by a record 52,010 cases to 1.1 million on Sunday.

Colombia has become the eighth country in the world with over 1 million infections.

Italy has reported 21,273 cases, the highest one-day increase since the start of the pandemic.

The Netherlands (10,211), Iran (6,191) and Hungary (3,149) have also hit single-day records.

Amid the record rise in new cases, the Italian government announced that bars and restaurants would have to close at 6 p.

m., except for Sundays. The new measures take effect next week.

In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is seeking to keep a new COVID-19 state of alarm in place it until May 9. The state of alarm envisages a night curfew from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Regional authorities, however, will be able to push forward or back the curfew hours. Social contacts and travel between autonomous communities are also being restricted.

In Berlin, unknown people attempted overnight to set fire to a building of the Robert Koch Institute, an institution in charge of keeping count of COVID-19 cases in Germany, the city police said on Sunday, saying that they not ruling out political motives behind the attack.

Austria hopes to launch coronavirus vaccination in February-March, Health Minister Rudolf Anschober told Kronen Zeitung. The official warned that the next three-four weeks would be "decisive" in the fight against the pandemic.

Serbia will sign an agreement on the procurement of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by German company BioNTech and US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer in the coming days, President Aleksandar Vucic announced.