There were more new coronavirus cases reported on Friday across the world than there have been on any single day since the health crisis began late last year.
The new high achieved on Friday was 350,766 cases, the United Nations health agency said. The previous high mark, set earlier this week, was nearly 12,000 fewer cases in a single day.
“The majority of people in the world are still susceptible to this disease,” Dr. Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization’s emergencies chief, warned in a press briefing reported by the Associated Press.
He also said that new lockdowns “may be unavoidable where the disease has got out of control again, but we shouldn’t accept that in every country. The return of cases should be seen with an immediate return of the need for lockdown restrictions.”
There have been more than 36 million positive COVID-19 diagnoses worldwide since the beginning of the pandemic, and it has led to more than 1 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker.
