Businesses cannot force employees to work from home and for those that do, they must cover the costs incurred, according to a draft bill approved Tuesday by Spain's government.

The coronavirus pandemic appears to be accelerating worldwide, with new cases soaring last week to a new seven-day high of almost two million, even as new deaths decreased, WHO statistics showed.

Bavarian state premier Markus Soeder said Monday he was getting a "stomach ache" over fears that this week's UEFA Super Cup final in Hungary could become the next coronavirus superspreader event.

A million people in and around the Spanish capital on Monday were under new "stay-at-home" orders to contain another coronavirus surge, as the US death toll neared 200,000.

The number of coronavirus deaths in France is rising for the first time since the end of lockdown, the public health agency said Friday, warning that all outbreak indicators are worsening.

Britain is seeing a second wave of the coronavirus outbreak, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday, as millions more people faced new restrictions and the government warned that another national lockdown could be imminent.

Britain's government Friday warned it could re-impose a national lockdown across England to counter the coronavirus pandemic, noting rates of hospitalisation are doubling every eight days.

Thousands of people in northwest China have tested positive for a bacterial disease after a leak from a state-owned biopharmaceutical plant making animal vaccines last year.

Health officials in Lanzhou city said 3,245 people had contracted brucellosis, a disease often caused by close contact with infected animals or animal products that can bring about fevers, joint pain and headaches.

India’s coronavirus cases have jumped by another 96,424 infections in the past 24 hours, showing little signs of slowing down.

The Health Ministry on Friday raised the nation’s confirmed total since the pandemic began to more than 5.21 million. It said 1,174 more people died in the past 24 hours, for a total of 84,372.

Large parts of Europe on Friday geared up for broad new restrictions to stop the coronavirus, after infections worldwide topped 30 million and the World Health Organization warned of "alarming rates of transmission".

Britain is limiting gatherings and France is set to roll out new curbs for major cities as governments across the continent battle fresh spikes of the disease.