India passed half a million coronavirus infections as experts advised the government to prioritise reducing mortality over containing the spread of Covid-19, while in the US surging infections prompted two of the biggest states to bring back coronavirus controls. Texas became the first state to revive lockdown measures, as new daily infections surged to nearly 6,000 and a senior official warned that hospitals risked being overwhelmed in the near future. “We opened too quickly,” Lina Hidalgo, judge for Harris county which includes Houston, said at a press conference on Friday. Florida, which has also seen record infection rates, banned alcohol sales in bars and at least one county in the state said it would close beaches over the Fourth of July weekend. Globally coronavirus cases are rising towards 10 million, with nearly half a million deaths. Brazil and the US have the largest outbreaks, between them accounting for more than a third of the global toll. The fourth biggest outbreak is in India, where health authorities reported 17,000 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, taking the country’s total infections past 500,000, according to Johns Hopkins university figures. In Delhi, hotels, wedding halls, an ashram and railway coaches are being repurposed for coronavirus care, as hospitals filled beyond capacity have been forced to turn patients away. So far India has recorded more than 15,000 deaths from Covid-19, a lower ratethan in many Western countries. Health experts are urging the government to prioritise keeping mortality down as the infection spreads. “Our focus should be on preventing deaths and not really getting bogged down because of the numbers. Numbers are going to increase,” said Dr Manoj Murhekar, a member of India’s main coronavirus task force and director of the National Institute of Epidemiology. As these countries battle their first wave, several countries that have largely suppressed the virus are trying to contain fresh regional outbreaks – from Beijing to Germany – and stop them escalating into second major wave of infections. Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Saturday that the pandemic was far from over, and said everyone had “joint responsibility” for keeping the virus in check. The country has put a Western region of about 500,000 people back under lockdown after hundreds of workers at a meat processing plant tested positive. “Germany has gotten through the crisis well so far, but that doesn’t mean we are protected, that the risk has been averted,” she said. “That is not the case, as is demonstrated by these regional outbreaks.” China also reported an increase in new Covid-19 cases, the day after health authorities said they expected an outbreak in Beijing to be under control soon. There were 17 new cases in the capital, where several neighbourhoods have been locked down and a negative Covid test is required for travel to other parts of the country. As infections rise, Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche says it is unable to meet demand for molecular tests to identify active Covid-19 infections. ‘The demand exceeds our production,’ chairman Christoph Franz told the Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger. The decision on where tests were shipped to depended, among other things, on infection rates and the availability of diagnostic equipment. On Friday Brazil recorded 46,860 new infections, its third consecutive day when that total was over 40,000. The new figures came amid warnings that the spread through smaller towns in Brazil’s interior risked a return of infections in major cities, dubbed a “boomerang effect,” as a lack of specialised medical treatment forced patients into larger urban centres. The Brazilian government has reached a deal with Oxford University and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to produce a promising coronavirus vaccine, one of several currently undergoing tests worldwide. It will start manufacturing more than 30m doses from December, allowing it to rapidly start inoculations next year if the vaccine is proved effective; in total the $127m deal covers 100m vaccines, for a country of 210 million people. The US also reported its highest daily number of infections, with more than 40,000 cases. In the first coronavirus taskforce briefing since April – which was not held at the White House and had no presidential appearance – showed current infection rates outstripped the peak of April and May. European Union countries failed to settle on Friday on a final “safe list” of countries whose residents could travel to the bloc from July, with the United States, Brazil and Russia looked set to be excluded. Ambassadors from the 27 EU members convened from Friday afternoon to establish criteria for granting quarantine-free access from next Wednesday. A redrawn text of 10-20 countries was put to ambassadors, but many said they needed to consult first with their governments, diplomats said. The list did not include the United States, Brazil or Russia, one diplomat said. Discussions were continuing overnight, with the EU countries expected to give informal replies by Saturday evening, people familiar with the matter said. There is broad agreement that the bloc should only open up to those with a similar or better epidemiological situation, but there are questions about how to assess a country’s handling of the epidemic and the reliability of data. In other coronavirus developments: Global infections stood at 9,859,738, with deaths approaching 500,000. A federal judge in New York has blocked the state from enforcing coronavirus restrictions limiting indoor religious gatherings to 25% capacity when other types of gatherings are limited to 50%. Another US federal judge ordered the release of children held with their parents in US immigration jails and denounced the Trump administration’s prolonged detention of families during the coronavirus pandemic. The Victorian state government in Australia is seeking legal advice to see if it can force travellers returning from overseas to have a coronavirus test, after a large number of cases in recent days around the city of Melbourne. The Argentine government said on Friday night it would reintroduce strict quarantine measures in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. The measures would last 17 days and begin on 1 July.