A street cleaner hoses down a sidewalk in Malaga, Spain, on Saturday, August 29, 2020. In the past week, Spain has recorded more new coronavirus infections per capita than anywhere else in Europe, and experts fear it is the beginning of a new phase of the pandemic. (Samuel Aranda/The New York Times)

Coronavirus Global Updates: Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic almost 10 months ago, more than 25,485,328 people have tested positive for the deadly virus, while over 850,544 deaths have been recorded so far, according to data released by Johns Hopkins University. Around 16.8 million people have recovered from the illness worldwide.

A survey conducted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has found that 90 per cent of 105 countries believe that the ongoing pandemic caused a disruption to health services. Low and middle-income countries were the worst affected, the survey showed.

The UN health agency has said that essential services like — immunisation, family planning services, and cancer and cardiovascular disease diagnosis and treatment — were the worst-affected, AP reported.

Here are some top global developments

10,000 tested in first 2 hours of Hong Kong’s universal testing

More than 10,000 people were tested within two hours of the launch of Hong Kong’s universal testing drive, China’s Global Times reported. Small queues began forming outside testing centres as soon as they opened early in the morning.

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam was amongst the first few people to be tested, along with a number of other senior government officials.

The makeshift testing site is seen at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium in Hong Kong Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. Hong Kong began a voluntary mass-testing program for coronavirus Tuesday as part of a strategy to break the chain of transmission in the city’s third outbreak of the disease. (Anthony Kwan /Pool Photo via AP)

At least 593,000 residents of Hong Kong have signed up for the mass testing programme, according to the Global Times report. However, several groups, such as the HA Employees Alliance (HAEA), has called the scheme ineffective and have urged citizens to refrain from getting tested.

Many fear that residents will grow lax once they obtain negative test results, and the disease will spread further as people will stop strictly following prevention measures. Critics have also raised concerns about the scheme being misused for surveillance.

Chinese students begin full return to school

After no new cases of local transmission were reported in the last two weeks, Chinese students on Tuesday began returning to school for regular classes. While almost 75% students have returned to their classroom, the remaining children are set to rejoin school on Tuesday, AP reported.

Across different Chinese regions, social distancing norms and mask wearing has been enforced at varying degrees. However, local reports claim that all schools are conducting temperature checks of children before they enter.

On Tuesday, Chinese health officials announced that the country had reported 10 new cases of coronavirus, all of which were imported, AP reported. China has recorded 85,058 cases and 4,634 deaths since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Wuhan, last year.

Hungary reopens borders to eastern neighbours

Just as a lockdown in Hungary’s borders took effect, the country announced that it will allow tourists from three of its East European neighbours — Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia — to enter, as long as they provide their negative COVID-19 test results, Reuters reported.

Last week, Hungary had announced that it would not allow any foreign travellers to enter the country due to a surge in coronavirus cases.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban agreed to allow Czech visitors to enter the country after a discussion with Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis on Monday. The relaxations were later extended to the other two neighbours, Reuters reported.

Tourists visiting Hungary will be required to provide a negative coronavirus test, that is not older than five days.

French drugmaker says its arthritis drug does not cure COVID-19

French drugmaker Sanofi has announced that its rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara has been found not to work as a treatment for COVID-19. The drug was being tested on critically ill COVID-19 patients as part of a US study, Reuters reported.

In a statement, the company said that it did not anticipate any further testing of the drug on COVID patients.

“Although this trial did not yield the results we hoped for, we are proud of the work that was achieved by the team to further our understanding of the potential use of Kevzara for the treatment of COVID-19,” Sanofi’s Global Head of Research and Development John Reed said.

Number of daily cases, deaths drop in Victoria

The Australian state of Victoria has reported 70 new cases and five deaths since yesterday — its lowest number of cases and deaths in two weeks. All the patients who succumbed to the virus were elderly residents of old age homes, state health authorities said, Al Jazeera reported.

Encouraged by the drop in numbers, the state’s premier Daniel Andrews has announced that the government is now planning a gradual reopening of Victoria.

“Given the low number of cases in regional Victoria and the fact that our strategy there has been very successful… we can today announce that on Sunday we’ll speak about two road maps towards opening up, one for metropolitan Melbourne and a second road map that may have different common end parts for regional Victoria,” he told journalists, according to Australian broadcaster ABC.

A teacher gives a lesson to masked school children in Bischheim, outside Strasbourg, eastern France, Tuesday, Sept.1, 2020. Millions of French children starting going back to class Tuesday despite a recent rise in virus infections, in a nationwide experiment aimed at bridging inequalities and reviving the economy. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)

New face mask rules enforced in France

The French government has introduced a new set of rules for mask-wearing amongst office-goers in the country. According to a BBC report, the country published detailed criteria for when employees can remove their masks.

Different measures have been enforced in different parts of the country, with respect to mask wearing, depending on how widely the virus has spread in a particular region. In less-affected areas, masks can be removed if the office space has adequate ventilation and social distancing measures are in place.

In ‘red zones’, all employees are required to maintain a 4 sq m distance from the people around them to remove their mask.