Illustrative image (Photo: Xinhua/VNA)

The US continues to be the hardest-hit country by the pandemic with more than 81.8 million cases and 1 million deaths followed by India and Brazil. In the past 24 hours, the world recorded 12 million new cases of COVID-19. South Korea ranked first with 264,000 cases.

Europe leads the world in the number of infections with 179.5 million cases and 1.8 million deaths. Asia followed with nearly 140 million infections and more than 1.4 million deaths.