COVID-19 Update: Global numbers continue to climb, U.S. confirmed cases exceed 2 million, Kurdistan Regional Government Minister of Health says outbreak in the region is “out of control”

As global efforts to find an effective vaccine for the novel coronavirus COVID-19 continue, numbers of infections continue to rise as the virus cripples health systems and spreads in previously unaffected countries. Some cities and regions have been forced to reimpose restrictions and lockdown measures as case numbers rebound.

More than seven million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 400,000 deaths have now been recorded, according to the latest information from Worldometer, which aggregates data from official sources.

The United States has by a wide margin the most cases globally with over two million confirmed infections, nearly thirty percent of all known cases, with over 112,000 confirmed deaths.

In Syria, the Ministry of Health in Damascus announced on Sunday that the town of Ras al-Maara in Damascus countryside was quarantined after 16 cases of COVID-19 were discovered.

The official number of recorded cases in Syria is now 141, though most international experts believe the true number to be higher. The Health Ministry added that the cases in Ras al-Maara were in contact with a truck driver transporting goods between Syria and Jordan who tested positive for the virus.

Across the border in Iraq, 1,288 new COVID-19 infections and 28 deaths were recorded. In the northern Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Minister of Health said that the outbreak of COVID-19 in the region is out of control and threatens to spiral into a major humanitarian disaster.