Standing tall in bright red hazmat suits, five North Korean health workers stride towards an ambulance to do battle with a COVID-19 outbreak that – in the presumed absence of vaccines – the country is using antibiotics and home remedies to treat. The isolated state is one of only two countries yet to begin a vaccination campaign and, until last week, had insisted it was COVID-free. Now North Korea is mobilizing forces including the army and a public information campaign to combat what authorities have acknowledged is an “explosive” outbreak.

Covid-19 has caused 6.9 million deaths globally, more than double what official numbers show, according to an analysis by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington School of Medicine. IHME found that Covid-19 deaths are significantly underreported in almost every country.

U.S. President Joe Biden on May 3 imposed new travel restrictions on India in light of the Covid-19 epidemic, barring most non-U.S. citizens from entering the United States.

The number of new Covid-19 cases per week nearly doubled globally over the past two months, approaching the highest rate seen so far during the pandemic, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on April 16.

The United States on Feb. 22 crossed the staggering milestone of 500,000 Covid-19 deaths just over a year since the coronavirus pandemic claimed its first known victim in Santa Clara County, California.

Global deaths from Covid-19 are expected to top 100,000 per week “very soon,” the World Health Organization’s top emergency expert Mike Ryan said.

President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to boost the Covid-19 vaccine rollout – including by spending $20 billion to create mass vaccination centers – should help speed up putting shots into the arms of millions of Americans, experts and officials told Reuters.

The World Health Organization tightened guidelines on wearing face masks, recommending that, where Covid-19 is spreading, they be worn by everyone in health care facilities and for all interactions in poorly ventilated indoor spaces.

The United States recorded the country’s 12th million Covid-19 case, even as millions of Americans were expected to travel for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, ignoring warnings from health officials about furthering the spread of the infectious disease.

The U.S. death toll from Covid-19 surpassed a grim new milestone of 250,000 lives lost as New York City’s public school system – the nation’s largest – called a halt to in-classroom instruction, citing a jump in coronavirus infection rates.