Another horror day of the coronavirus pandemic saw the global death toll pass 94,000, although there were tentative signs of hope that the crisis was peaking in the United States and Europe.
Nearly half of all pandemic fatalities have occurred over the past week, meanwhile, authorities in worst-hit Europe and the United States said a slight decline in daily deaths and infections gave reason to hope the worst could be over.
Another 1,700 people died in the United States on Thursday, while there were hundreds more deaths across Europe, driving the confirmed global toll above 94,000.
France reported that 82 fewer people were in intensive care for COVID-19 -- the first fall since the pandemic broke out.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of Spain said: "The fire started by the pandemic is starting to come under control,"
Fatalities inched down in Spain to 683 from 757 a day before, pushing that country's total above 15,000.
"Our priority now is not to turn back, especially not to return to our starting point, not to lower our guard."
And Anthony Fauci, the US government's top pandemic expert, said the United States was "going in the right direction".
The US recorded 1,783 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University as of 0030 GMT Friday, lower than the previous day's record toll of 1,973.
The US has seen more than 16,500 confirmed deaths, the second-highest tally in the world after Italy, and more than 460,000 confirmed cases.
Further lifting spirits, the health improved of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the highest profile of the 1.5 million people infected by the virus, and he ended three days of intensive care.
However Britain announced another 881 deaths on Thursday, taking the total to nearly 8,000.
On the economic front, Europe attempted a fightback with EU finance ministers agreeing in late-night talks to a 500 billion-euro ($550 billion) rescue package aimed at reducing pain across the 27-nation bloc, especially hardest-hit Italy and Spain.
According to AFP, despite hopeful signs in Western nations as well as in China, where the virus was first detected late last year, there are fears the worst is still to come in much of the developing world.
Brazilian authorities Thursday confirmed the first deaths in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro where crowding and poor sanitation have raised fears of a catastrophe.
There are similar fears in India, where hundreds of millions of poor people are becoming increasingly desperate.
"I keep hearing that the government will do this and that. No one has even come to see if we are alive or dead," Rajni Devi, a mother of three, told AFP in a slum on the outskirts of New Delhi.
In a move to build international solidarity over the crisis, Germany on Thursday led a videoconference session of the UN Security Council on the pandemic.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the session by calling the pandemic "the fight of a generation -- and the raison d'etre of the United Nations itself."
Guterres appealed for a global halt to conflicts to concentrate on the COVID-19 fight.
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