GENEVA: The World Health Organisation says the number of coronavirus deaths globally jumped by 21% in the last week.
Most of the 69,000 deaths were reported in the Americas and Southeast Asia.
The U.N health agency also noted that COVID-19 cases rose by 8% worldwide and that there are now nearly 194 million infections.
WHO said that "if these trends continue, the cumulative number of cases reported globally could exceed 200 million in the next two weeks."
It added that the number of COVID-19 deaths increased in all regions except for Europe.
The biggest numbers of cases were reported in the U.S., Brazil, Indonesia, the U.K. and India.