Portugal claims highest average COVID-19 infection rate

Portuguese health authorities are opening temporary medical sites in hotels, university residences, and churches as cases rise in the country. The country’s daily new cases reached 98 per 100,000 people on Tuesday, the highest in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University. Its rate of new deaths per capita is the second highest. The country is in lockdown.

What about the rest of the world? The Netherlands is eyeing a curfew to curb the spread of a virus variant from the United Kingdom. Hospitals in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, are canceling nonessential surgeries for the next month after the country broke its own record for new infections for nine days straight. The number of daily new infections in the country has almost tripled since November. In Belgium, representatives from Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Anglican, Muslim, and Orthodox faith groups sent a letter to the government asking for relief from a 150-person cap on worship services.

Dig deeper: Read John Dawson’s report in Beginnings on the U.K. variant of the virus.