Mexico passed the 100,000 mark in COVID-19 deaths Thursday, becoming only the fourth country — behind the United States, Brazil and India — to do so.

José Luis Alomía Zegarra, Mexico's director of epidemiology, said there were 100,104 confirmed COVID-19 deaths as of Thursday. The milestone comes less than a week after Mexico said it had topped 1 million registered coronavirus cases, though officials agree the number is probably much higher because of low levels of testing.

The United States' top infectious disease official said Thursday that two coronavirus vaccines being tested were "solid," and that the speed at which they were developed has not compromised safety or integrity.

The US registered more than 2,200 deaths from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally on Thursday, a record high since May as the pandemic surges across the country.

Nearly a million people have taken an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by Chinese company Sinopharm, the firm said, although it has not yet provided any clear clinical evidence of efficacy.

Russia's total coronavirus caseload surpassed two million on Thursday as officials registered record increases in new infections and virus-related deaths. 

A leading Covid-19 vaccine candidate has shown to safely produce a robust immune response in healthy older adults, its British makers said Thursday as it released its phase 2 trial results.

The African continent has surpassed 2 million confirmed cases as health officials warn of infections starting to creep up again into a second surge.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that the continent had crossed that milestone. Its numbers show the 54-country continent also has seen more than 48,000 deaths from COVID-19.

Japan is on "maximum alert" after logging a record number of daily coronavirus infections, the prime minister said Thursday, though no immediate restrictions are planned.

US coronavirus deaths passed a quarter of a million people Wednesday as New York announced it would close schools to battle a rise in infections and anti-restriction protests in Europe turned violent.

Nurses hover over a patient to insert a breathing tube as his condition suddenly deteriorates. ICU beds fill up almost overnight. As one patient dies of the coronavirus and is wheeled out, another is whisked in to take his place. An exhausted doctor leans against a wheelchair for a breather.

The pace is dizzying at the largest isolation hospital in Syria's northwestern city of Idlib. There are no bombs falling outside and the wounded don't crowd bloodstained corridors amid a shaky cease-fire in the country's decade old civil war. Still, the intensive care unit staff is overwhelmed with beds full of elderly patients gasping for air.