The world hit another grim milestone this week as both the United States and the international community struggle to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

There have now been more than 50 million confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide.

According to Johns Hopkins University, global cases have been growing by 1 million every two days, with the majority of them coming from the U.S. and Europe.

As a result, a number of European countries are imposing a second round of lockdowns to help control the outbreak.

The number of people dying from COVID-19, however, is lower than at the height of the pandemic. Still, about 5,000 people lost their lives to the virus in the last 24 hours. We reached a peak in April, when more than 8,000 people were dying from the virus in a single day.

COVID-19 infections appear to be surging in nursing homes in 20 states as well.

A new study by the University of Chicago found new weekly cases rose from more than 1,000 to 4,200 from May to late October.

Resident deaths also doubled from nearly 300 a week to just under 700.

Weekly cases among staff has also quadrupled, according to the study.

Nursing homes have been a vulnerable target of the pandemic, with around 40% of all COVID-19 deaths attributed to residents. 

The Trump administration has allocated $5 billion to nursing homes, and shipped nearly 14,000 fast-test machines.