Coronavirus infections in South Africa surged past 20,000 with close to 400 deaths, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Friday.

President Donald Trump on Friday urged U.S. state governors to allow places of worship to reopen immediately, as the country moves gradually towards a lifting of COVID-19 lockdown measures.

"Today I am identifying houses of worship -- churches, synagogues and mosques -- as essential places that provide essential services," Trump told a news conference at the White House.

The coronavirus pandemic is putting tens of millions of children's lives at risk by disrupting routine immunization programs, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said Friday.

The United Nations agencies joined forces with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to warn that the pandemic has severely disrupted vaccination programs in dozens of countries, paving the way for a deadly resurgence of preventable diseases.

South America has become "a new epicenter" of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization said Friday, following a surge in the number of COVID-19 infections.

"In a sense, South America has become a new epicenter for the disease. We have seen many South American countries with increasing numbers of cases," WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan told a virtual news conference.

Egypt's cabinet has preliminarily approved a bill that taxes one percent of citizens' salaries to cushion the impact of coronavirus on strained government finances, sparking online criticism.

The coronavirus pandemic accelerated across Latin America, Russia and the Indian subcontinent on Friday even as curves flattened and reopening was underway in much of Europe, Asia and the United States.

Many governments say they have to shift their focus to saving jobs that are vanishing as quickly as the virus can spread. In the United States and China, the world's two largest economies, unemployment is soaring.

Russia on Friday reported its highest ever daily coronavirus death toll of 150, even though the number of new infections fell below 9,000 for the third day in a row.

Health officials reported a total of 3,249 deaths and 326,448 cases, the second-highest number of infections in the world after the United States. 

More young people are dying of COVID-19 in Brazil than other countries, a trend driven partly by demographics -- the overall population is younger -- but also by poverty and the need to work.

Iran called on its citizens on Thursday to avoid travel during the upcoming festival marking the end of Ramadan as it announced another surge in coronavirus infections.

China offered a low-key rebuttal to United States President Donald Trump's accusation of mass killing on Thursday, with a foreign ministry official insisting the country did its best to protect lives during the pandemic.