Geneva, October 25 (RHC)-- The World Health Organization's coronavirus dashboard on Sunday showed a third consecutive daily record high in the number of new confirmed cases.  The WHO's complete figures for Saturday showed that 465,319 cases were confirmed to the UN health agency during the day, topping the 449,720 recorded on Friday and the 437,247 logged on Thursday.

The WHO has warned that some countries are on a "dangerous track", with too many witnessing an exponential increase in cases.  Within each week, the pattern of cases being reported to the WHO tends to spike towards Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and dip around Tuesday and Wednesday.

According to the WHO's figures, there have been more than 42.3 million confirmed cases of the respiratory disease, while nearly 1.15 million people have lost their lives, including 6,570 on Saturday.

"We are at a critical juncture in this pandemic, particularly in the northern hemisphere," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference on Friday.  "The next few months are going to be very tough and some countries are on a dangerous track.

"Too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases and that is now leading to hospitals and ICU (intensive care units) running close or above capacity -- and we're still only in October."

The WHO urged leaders "to take immediate action, to prevent further unnecessary deaths, essential health services from collapsing and schools shutting again," he said.