COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 6 November

1. How COVID-19 is affecting the globe

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now passed 48.7 million globally, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 1.23 million.

India has now recorded more than 8.4 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, with nearly 125,000 deaths.

AstraZeneca plans to start early and mid-stage clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate in China this year, according to a senior executive.

Confirmed cases in Brazil have gone past 5.6 million, after 22,294 new cases were reported.

Delivery and takeaway services for prepared food and alcohol will be banned in Paris between 10pm and 6am from today, in an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Household spending in Japan fell in September from a year earlier, while real wages slid for a seventh straight month, new data shows.

Greece has ordered a three-week nationwide lockdown to tackle a sharp increase in infections this week.

2. Mink cull in Denmark

Denmark plans to cull its entire mink population, and announced a strict new lockdown in its north, to prevent a mutated strain of COVID-19 from spreading from the animals to humans.

“So there is a risk of course that this mink population could contribute in some way to the transmission of the virus from minks into humans, and then onwards from humans to humans,” Catherine Smallwood, a senior emergency officer at the World Health Organization’s European office in Copenhagen, said in a social media event.

The mutated strain found in the mink is thought to have caused infections in a dozen people in Denmark, the WHO said, adding that mink appeared to be "good reservoirs" for the disease.

Some 17 million animals will be culled, with a "huge economic impact," according to WHO European regional director, Hans Kluge.

3. Record increases in US cases

Confirmed cases in the United States rose by at least 120,276 yesterday, according to a Reuters tally. It represents the second consecutive record daily rise.

Cases have risen by more than 100,000 for three of the past seven days, straining healthcare systems in several states.

Twenty out of 50 states reported record one-day increases yesterday, with the virus hitting the the Midwest especially hard. Some cities and states have announced new measures, but no action has been taken at a federal level, reports Reuters.