NEW YORK, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Global COVID-19 death toll topped 170,000 on Monday evening, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
A total of 170,261 people have died of the disease as of 10:40 p.m. Monday (0340 GMT on Tuesday) among 2,475,841 cases worldwide, the CSSE data showed.
The United States has suffered the most fatalities at 42,295 as its total caseload topped 786,600; Italy recorded 24,114 deaths, Spain reported 20,852 deaths and France also recorded over 20,000 deaths, according to the CSSE.
Italy, the epicenter of the outbreak in Europe, reported on Monday for the first time a fall in its total active COVID-19 infections, and Spain saw its lowest single-day fatalities in the past four weeks.
The U.S. state of New York, the epicenter of the outbreak in that country, has launched a large-scale COVID-19 antibody testing regime starting on Monday in an effort to determine how much of its population has been infected with the virus.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday announced on Twitter that he will sign an executive order to temporarily suspend immigration to his country.
The decision, according to Trump, is made in light of the pandemic and "the need to protect the jobs" of Americans.
Germany's coronavirus cases surpassed 140,000 on Monday, with a remarkably low fatality rate of 3.1 pct among confirmed COVID-19 infections, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the government agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention.
Starting from Monday, shops in Germany with a maximum sales area of up to 800 square meters are allowed to open under new regulations for hygiene as well as access and queue control.
Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a "gradual" and "cautious" exit strategy from COVID-19 measures, saying "Despite everything, we are still at the very beginning of the pandemic and are far from out of the woods."
In Serbia, service shops, green markets and construction sites will start working in full capacity from Tuesday, with obligatory protective measures against COVID-19, the government said in a press release.
Turkey's COVID-19 cases soared past 90,000 on Monday with more than 2,100 deaths, while the number of confirmed cases in Iran hit 83,505 amid continued slowdown in epidemic.
Turkey, the new epicenter of the outbreak in the Middle East, has recorded 90,980 COVID-19 cases after 4,674 new ones were confirmed on Monday.
In Iran, 1,294 new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed, raising the total number to 83,505, while deaths increased to 5,209, up by 91 from a day ago.
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