Lab technician working on coronavirus vaccine
Lab technician working on coronavirus vaccineReuters

The World Health Organization on Friday announced a new daily record high in coronavirus cases confirmed worldwide, with more than 350,000 reported infections, The Associated Press reported.

The new daily high of 350,766 cases surpasses a record set earlier this week by nearly 12,000. That tally includes more than 109,000 cases from Europe alone, according to the report.

In a press briefing on Friday, WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan acknowledged that even as COVID-19 continues to surge across the world, “there are no new answers.”

He said that although the agency wants countries to avoid the punishing lockdowns that have devastated economies, governments must ensure the most vulnerable people are protected and numerous measures must be taken.

“The majority of people in the world are still susceptible to this disease,” Ryan warned. He said countries should focus not just on restrictive measures, but also on bolstering their surveillance systems, testing, contact tracing and ensuring populations are engaged.

Ryan said 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.”

More than 36 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported worldwide, including more than 1 million deaths.

In France, meanwhile, the number of new coronavirus infections jumped more than 20,000 in one day for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

The local health ministry reported 20,330 new infections, taking the cumulative total to 691,977 since the start of the year. In the past two days the ministry had reported more than 18,000 daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The record numbers have caused many countries in Europe to declare new emergency measures in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Simchat Torah and Shmini Atzeret in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)