BEIJING — China on Monday reported its highest number of coronavirus cases in three months, part of a worrying swell of second and third-wave infections that are hitting Asia and Europe. 

Australia has been rocked by its deadliest surge since the start of the pandemic, Hong Kong is experiencing record daily numbers and Spain’s caseload has tripled in the last fortnight. 

Hong Kong will ban all dine-in services at restaurants and public gatherings of more than two people not from the same family starting Wednesday, as the city’s worst coronavirus outbreak shows no sign of abating. 

In a third round of rule-tightening in as many weeks, Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung said Monday that masks will also now be required in outdoors areas, with only medical exemptions. 

Sports venues and swimming pools are also being shut, adding to a list of closed businesses that included gyms, bars and beauty parlors. 

The new restrictions are for an initial period of one week before they’ll be reviewed. 

The Asian financial center has been taken off-guard by the sudden jump of infections after managing to contain the spread locally as it tore across the world. 

Officials are now scrambling to slow what they’re calling a third wave, while boosting health-care facilities that are reaching capacity. 

On Sunday, Hong Kong detected 103 local cases, the fifth consecutive day that new infections were above a hundred. 

Before this month, the reported number of daily locally transmitted infections had never topped 28. Meanwhile, other regions are still battling their first waves after never getting the virus under control: The US alone has recorded almost 4.23 million cases of COVID-19, while infections in Latin America and the Caribbean surged on Sunday to briefly overtake North America’s total for the first time. 

Worldwide the confirmed case count has passed 16 million, although experts believe that figure is vastly short of the true number. 

One study in New Delhi found a quarter of people tested had contracted the virus, amounting to 4.7 million in the Indian capital alone. 

China – where the coronavirus was first reported in December last year – recorded 61 cases on Monday, the highest daily figure since April. 

The second-wave surge was propelled by clusters in separate regions, and authorities have declared “wartime mode” lockdown measures to combat the spread of the deadly contagion. 

Most of the 57 new domestic cases were in the far northwestern Xinjiang region, where an outbreak in the regional capital Urumqi occurred in mid-July. 

A second programme of mass testing was launched Sunday in the city of 3.5 million people to check residents who had previously tested negative, with 2.3 million people screened so far. 

Chinese authorities have also rolled out mass testing for hundreds of thousands in the northeast port city of Dalian where a fresh cluster broke out last week. 

Deadly new waves

Australia on Sunday suffered its deadliest day since the pandemic began, with 10 fatalities and a rise in new infections despite an intense lockdown effort. And on Monday the country recorded its highest number of daily cases of at least 549, more than Wednesday’s high of 501 with some states still to report their numbers. 

Daniel Andrews, premier of Victoria state where the latest outbreak is centered, begged anyone sick to stay at home. 

And Spain, where more than 28,400 have lost their lives, has also witnessed a recent surge in cases with nearly 1,000 on both Thursday and Friday, although the government insisted the country was safe to visit and was not experiencing a second wave. 

“Like other European countries, Spain has new outbreaks,” Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya told reporters on Sunday, adding: “It’s not unusual.” 

London sparked a spat with the Iberian country, hugely popular with British holidaymakers, after it announced passengers arriving from Spain should spend a fortnight in isolation. 

However, Britain defended its decision with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab telling Sky News: “We can’t make apologies for doing so... We must be able to take swift, decisive action.” 

Cases pass 16 million 

As worldwide infections passed 16 million, Latin America and the Caribbean totalled more than 4.34 million, according to an AFP tally, briefly surpassing North America, where the United States remains the hardest-hit country in terms of both caseload and death toll. 

But North America soon moved ahead again, as the US recorded more than 55,000 new cases in 24 hours for a total of nearly 4.23 million. 

Combined with Canada’s 116,000 cases, North America now has more than 4.34 million infections. In Latin America, Brazil is the worst-hit country with almost 2.42 million cases and more than 87,000 deaths. 

There have also been increases in infections in Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Argentina, all of which are trying to resume economic activities.