More than 300,000 people around the world have died from the coronavirus.
That's according to the latest global stats that puts the number of infections at more than 4.5 million.
The US has accounted for more than 85,000 deaths, while the UK and Italy have reported more than 30,000 fatalities each. Meanwhile, France and Spain have reported more than 27,000 each.
Health experts, however, warned that the true number of infections and fatalities could be far higher.
It comes as an American government whistleblower said the US could face "the darkest winter" if it does not improve its COVID-19 response.
"Our window of opportunity is closing," Rick Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. "If we fail to improve our response now, based on science, I fear the pandemic will get worse and be prolonged."
GlaxoSmithKline sued Pfizer and BioNTech in Delaware federal court on Thursday, accusing them of infringing GSK patents related to messenger RNA (mRNA) technology in the companies' blockbuster COVID-19 vaccines.
Israel's military is poised to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah and assault Hamas hold-outs in the southern Gaza Strip city, a senior Israeli defence official said, despite international warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Relentless rains, hail and winds of near hurricane intensity battered southern China, forcing the evacuation of an entire town of more than 1,700 people in the province of Guangdong, media said on Thursday.
Marine wildlife experts were frantically trying to rescue some 140 pilot whales stranded on Thursday in the shallow waters of an estuary in the southwest of the state of Western Australia.
A grand jury has charged 18 people with allegedly participating in an Arizona fake elector scheme to re-elect then-US President Donald Trump in 2020, the state's attorney general said on Wednesday.