India, Brazil hit grim pandemic milestones

India has recorded more than 1 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus, ranking it third in the world behind the United States and Brazil. More than 25,000 people have died in the second-most populous country in the world, although the Indian health ministry said on Friday that the nation’s recovery rate continued to improve at 63 percent. Late Thursday, Brazilian health officials said the South American nation topped 2 million confirmed cases and more than 76,000 deaths after recording an average of 1,000 deaths a day since late May. Nearly 1.4 million people have recovered in the world’s seventh-most populous country.

How are other parts of the world responding to the increase in infections? In Australia, officials in Victoria reported a record number of new cases on Friday while New South Wales imposed more restrictions after detecting new cases that likely came from neighboring Victoria. Israel also imposed a new weekend lockdown that bars people from going to malls, museums, and zoos to lower infection rates. Doctors in Colombia urged the government to reimpose a strict lockdown in the capital city of Bogota, which accounts for more than a third of the country’s cases.

Dig deeper: Read Julie Borg’s report in Beginnings on experts’ debate on how the virus spreads.