As leaders around the world struggle with how and when to loosen — or even reimpose — pandemic restrictions, the novel coronavirus continues its deadly spread. The number of confirmed infections worldwide surpassed 5 million after the worst day yet for new cases. World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that more than 100,000 new infections were reported over the previous 24 hours, the highest one-day total since the outbreak began late last year.

Authorities believe that so far, at least 1,8 million people have been cured of the disease.

Nearly two-thirds of the new infections came from just four countries — including the United States, which has more than 1.5 million cases and a soaring death toll that appears likely to reach 100,000 by the end of May. “We still have a long way to go in this pandemic,” Tedros said.

After the United States, the countries that register the most fatalities are the United Kingdom with 36,000 deaths and 248,000 patients, Italy with 32,000 deaths and 227,000 cases, France with 28,000 and 181,575 cases, and Spain with 28,000 deaths and 233,000 cases).

China, not counting Hong Kong and Macao, has a total of 83,000 people infected. The total death toll is 4,634 and 78,000 were completely healed. In the last 24 hours there have been 2 new cases and 0 deaths.

Since the beginning of the epidemic, Europe has seen 170,000 deaths (1,96 million infections), the United States and Canada 100,000 deaths (1,6 million infections), Latin America and the Caribbean 34,000 deaths (613,000 infections), Asia 13,000 deaths (399,000 infections), the Middle East 8,500 deaths (309,000 infections), Africa 3,000 deaths (96,000 infections), and Oceania 128 (8,400 infections).