The global number of coronavirus cases crossed 16 million on Sunday, more than half of them in the Americas and the Caribbean, according to an AFP tally from official sources.
The 16,050,223 cases include 645,184 fatalities with the United States the worst hit country, registering 4,178,021 infections and 146,460 dead.
Latin America and the Caribbean have recorded 4,328,915 cases and 182,501 dead followed by Europe on 3,052,108 cases and 207,734 dead.
The spread of the pandemic continues to accelerate and more than five million cases have been declared since July, which represents a third of the total number of cases since the pandemic began.
The World Health Organization says more than a million cases had been recorded in each of the last five weeks, with over 280,000 being reported on July 24 alone.
Australia suffers deadliest day of pandemic
Australia has suffered its deadliest day from the coronavirus since the pandemic began, with authorities reporting ten fatalities Sunday and a rise in new infections despite an intensive lockdown effort.
The country's COVID-19 death toll rose to 155 and the southeastern state of Victoria reported more than 450 new infections in the last 24 hours.
A clearly concerned Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said ten people aged between their 40s and 80s had died, of which seven deaths were linked to outbreaks in aged care facilities.
It is the worst loss of life from the virus in Australia since the disease first emerged.
Nokor declares emergency over suspected 1st case
North Korean authorities have imposed a lockdown on the border city of Kaesong after discovering what they say is the country's first suspected coronavirus case, state media reported Sunday.
Leader Kim Jong Un convened an emergency politburo meeting on Saturday to implement a "maximum emergency system and issue a top-class alert" to contain the virus, official news agency KCNA said.
If confirmed, it would be the first officially recognized case of COVID-19 in North Korea, where medical infrastructure is seen as woefully inadequate to deal with any epidemic.
KCNA said a defector who had left for South Korea three years ago returned on July 19 after "illegally crossing" the heavily fortified border dividing the two countries.
But there have been no reports in the South of anyone leaving through what is one of the world's most secure borders, replete with minefields and guard posts.
Pyongyang previously insisted that not a single case of the coronavirus had been seen in the North despite the illness having swept the globe, and the country's borders remain closed.