India has been recording about 15,000 new infections each day, and some states Tuesday were considering fresh lockdown measures to try to halt the spread of the virus in a nation of more than 1.3 billion. The government earlier lifted a nationwide lockdown in a bid to restart the ailing economy, which has shed millions of jobs.

Hospitals in Pakistan are turning away patients, but with the economy there teetering, the government remains determined to reopen the country.

New cases have also been rising steeply in Mexico, Colombia, and Indonesia.

Brazil, with more than 1.1 million cases and 51,000 deaths, has been affected more than anywhere but the US, which has reported more than 2.3 million cases and 120,000 deaths, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

In the US, surges in cases across the South and West are raising fears that progress against the virus is slipping away, as states reopen and many Americans resist wearing masks and keeping their distance from others.

On Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci will return to Capitol Hill at a fraught moment in the nation’s response. The government’s top infectious disease expert will testify before a House committee.

His testimony comes after President Donald Trump said at a weekend rally in Oklahoma that he had asked administration officials to slow down testing because too many positive cases are turning up, AP reported.

Many rally-goers did not wear masks, and for some, that was an act of defiance against what they see as government intrusion. White House officials later tried to walk back Trump’s comment on testing, suggesting it wasn’t meant to be taken literally.

Dr. Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization’s emergency chief, said the record number of new cases couldn’t be explained by increased testing alone, noting many countries have seen large increases in hospital admissions and deaths.

“The epidemic is now peaking or moving towards a peak in a number of large countries,” he said.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it took more than three months for the world to see 1 million confirmed infections, but just eight days to see the most recent 1 million cases.

“The greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself; it’s the lack of global solidarity and global leadership,” he said during a video conference for the Dubai-based World Government Summit.

Even some countries that have had initial success in stamping out the virus are finding pockets of resurgence.

In Australia, Victoria State on Tuesday reported 17 new cases, resulting in the closing of two primary schools in Melbourne. State Premier Daniel Andrews said there would be significant community transmission among the new cases.

China reported 22 new cases, including 13 in Beijing, a day after a city government spokesperson said containment measures had slowed the momentum of a new outbreak in the capital that has infected more than 200 people.

And South Korea reported 46 new cases, including 30 linked to international arrivals.

The country has been struggling to stem a resurgence of the virus in the Seoul metropolitan area, where hundreds of infections have been linked to entertainment and leisure activities, church gatherings and low-income workers such as door-to-door salespeople and warehouse workers who couldn’t afford to stay home.

South Korea also said it was testing 176 workers at the southern port of Busan following a virus outbreak among crew members of a Russian cargo ship that has so far sickened 16.

Saudi Arabia said this year’s Hajj pilgrimage to Islam’s holy sites will not be canceled, but only “very limited numbers” of people will be allowed to take part. The Hajj traditionally draws around 2 million Muslims from around the world for five intense days of worship and rituals in Mecca.

Worldwide, more than 9 million people have been confirmed infected by the virus and more than 472,000 have died, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally. Experts say the true numbers are much higher because of limited testing and cases in which patients had no symptoms.

Shouting “freedom” or “independence” and carrying candles, the demonstrators stood massed on a large boulevard in the city center at nightfall before observing a long moment of silence, AFP reported.

Around 200,000 people took part, a spokesman for Barcelona’s municipal police said.

Candle-lit demonstrations were also held in Girona, Reus and other Catalan cities in protest at the Madrid-based National Court’s Monday ruling to keep Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez behind bars pending investigations into sedition charges.

“They want us to be afraid so we stop thinking of independence, but the opposite will happen, we are more every day and I think we will achieve it in the end,” Elias Houariz, a 22-year-old baker, told AFP at the rally.

The demonstration came as the clock ticks down to Thursday, the deadline Madrid has set for Catalonia’s separatist leader Carles Puigdemont to spell out whether or not he intends to declare independence outright following the banned October 1 referendum.

Puigdemont has so far declined to give a definitive response, calling instead for Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to come to the negotiating table.

But Rajoy rejects mediation as a non-starter and unless Puigdemont backs down, appears likely to start imposing direct control over the semi-autonomous region.

Doing so could further escalate Spain’s worst political crisis since it emerged from military dictatorship in 1977.

The referendum, marred by a police crackdown on voters, resulted in a 90-percent “Yes” vote. But turnout was only 43 percent as many supporters of Spanish unity stayed away after the Constitutional Court ruled the vote illegal.

With the two sides stuck in a stalemate, Madrid announced late Monday that it was cutting its economic growth forecast for next year from 2.6 to 2.3 percent.

The prolonged uncertainty has rattled stock markets, while nearly 700 companies have moved their legal headquarters out of Catalonia, according to official figures released Tuesday.

The Spanish league have delayed putting out to tender their international television rights amid uncertainty over what the Catalonia crisis could mean for Barcelona, La Liga president Javier Tebas said on Tuesday.

“This is a problem that could greatly affect the value of our competitions,” he said.

Thousands of workers in Barcelona and other cities also staged a brief walkout at noon in protest at the detention of Cuixart and Sanchez.

The pair nicknamed the “two Jordis” are the leaders of pro-independence citizens’ groups Omnium Cultural and the Catalan National Assembly (ANC).

The groups count tens of thousands of members each and have emerged as influential players in the crisis.

“We are entering in a new phase of mobilizations, and they will be peaceful as always,” said Omnium spokesman Marcel Mauri.

Both Cuixart and Sanchez are accused of encouraging a major protest last month as Spanish police raided the Catalan administration’s offices in the run-up to the referendum.

Police officers were trapped for hours and their vehicles vandalized as protesters ringed the building, with Cuixart and Sanchez standing on a police car calling for “permanent mobilization” against the Spanish state.

The crime of sedition can carry up to 15 years in prison.

At the evening rally, Maria Miracle, 77, complained that “the corrupt remain free and people who organize civilized, peaceful protests are jailed.”

She understands Spanish but insisted on speaking to AFP in Catalan, remembering the times during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship when the regional language was officially banned and she “had to pay one peseta for every word of Catalan spoken at school.”

Omnium Cultural was founded in 1961 to keep Catalan alive.

Though she opposes the current drive for independence, Barcelona’s leftist Mayor Ada Colau blasted the move to detain Sanchez and Cuixart, who she said were being held as “political prisoners”.

With its own language and culture, Catalonia is proud of its autonomy but its 7.5 million people are split over whether to break away completely from the rest of Spain.

Supporters of independence say the region pays more into Spanish coffers than it gets back and could prosper by going it alone, but their opponents say secession would spell political and economic disaster.

The ‘Diada’ day of Sept. 11, which commemorates the fall of Barcelona to Spain in 1714, is often used by activists to voice their demands for an independent state. Coachloads of demonstrators travel to Barcelona from villages in the region.

Hostility between Madrid and Barcelona has ramped up since Spain’s Constitutional Court last Thursday suspended the referendum, planned for Oct. 1, following a legal challenge by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Reuters reported.

The government says the referendum contravenes the constitution, which states that Spain is indivisible.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has urged ‘independentistas’ to take to the streets on Monday in a massive show of support for the referendum.

“It’s vital that we come out in force for this Diada for the Oct. 1 referendum to be successful,” he said on Twitter. “I’ll be there.”

Spain’s state prosecutor has begun criminal proceedings against Puigdemont and 13 members of his cabinet on charges of misuse of public money, disobedience and abuse of office after the Catalan parliament approved the referendum last Wednesday.

Rajoy has urged Catalan civil servants and mayors to uphold the law and to stop any preparations for the referendum over the next three weeks.

However, around two-thirds of Catalonia’s mayors have so far said they will allow the use of municipal facilities for the vote, with one mayor ripping up a court order warning of legal repercussions in front of a cheering crowd.

Puigdemont has said he has ballot boxes and voting papers hidden and ready to deploy at any moment. Over the weekend, police searched a printing press and the offices of a local newspaper for signs of preparation for the referendum.

At the height of pro-independence fervor in 2012, during a deep economic recession in Spain, around one million people took to the streets waving the Catalan flag and singing the Catalan anthem.

Polls have shown support for independence waning since then, and those wanting a separate state are in a minority. However, a majority of Catalans want to hold a referendum on the issue.