“One million is a terrible number and we need to reflect on that before we start considering a second million,” the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan told a virtual news conference, when asked if it was unthinkable that two million people could die in the pandemic before a vaccine comes around.

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 984,000 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP. Nearly 32.3 million cases of the disease have been registered.

Forty vaccine candidates are in the various stages of being tested on humans. A further 149 are being developed in the lab. However, nine in 10 vaccine candidates typically fail. WHO figures showed Europe was on course Friday to surpass the 66,277 number of daily cases record set last Saturday.

The UN health agency’s Covid-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said the surge in infections registered across several European countries was partly due to better surveillance However, “what is worrying to us is an increase in hospitalisation and an increase in bed occupancy,” she said.