A record-setting single-day increase in total COVID-19 cases over a 24-hour period and the second highest single-day death toll was reported Friday by the World Health Organization (WHO), confirming observations the spread of this highly-contagious disease is still raging almost out of control.
WHO said total global COVID-19 cases on Friday rose to 284,196 within 24 hours. The previous WHO record for new cases in a single-day was 259,848 on July 18.
Total deaths came to 9,753 -- the largest single-day increase since a record high 9,797 deaths on April 30. Daily deaths so far into July are averaging 5,000 globally, up from an average of 4,600 per day in June.
WHO said the hardest hit by the new surge in cases are the same countries it identified two weeks ago: the United States, Brazil, India and South Africa. This week, the U.S. had 69,641 new cases. There were 67,860 in Brazil, 49,310 in India and 13,104 in South Africa.
As for daily deaths in July, the largest increases were 3,876 in Peru, 1,284 in Brazil, 1,074 in the United States, 790 in Mexico and 740 in India.
As of this Friday, the U.S. has been hit by 4.2 million cases and 148,000 deaths to lead the world in both categories. Behind the U.S. in total cases are Brazil (2.3 million), India (1.3 million), Russia (800,000) and South Africa (422,000), Mexico, Peru, Chile, Spain and the United Kingdom, according to Worldometer data. China is ranked 26th with 83,800 cases (up more than 30 from Thursday) and over 4,600 deaths.
On July 11, WHO reported 143,000 of the world's 230,000 new cases (or 62%) occurred in North and South America. Of this total, 40% or 57,400 new cases came from the United States.
WHO said the U.S. and Brazil had 111,319 combined new COVID-19 cases on July 12. This total is half of all new cases worldwide. On July 12, the U.S. accounted for 3.4 million out of the world's 13.0 million total COVID-19 cases. Brazil reported 1.87 million cases. The U.S. and Brazil lead the world in the total number of COVID-19 cases.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed the epicenter of the global pandemic remains the Americas.
"It would appear that many countries are losing gains made as proven measures to reduce risk are not implemented or followed," Dr. Tedros said.
Combined, the U.S. and Brazil currently account for more than 40% of the world's total cases and 36% of the world's total deaths.
