As the number of cases of COVID-19 worldwide nears 65 million, and the number of deaths attributed to the disease approaches 1.5 million, many countries are enduring a crushing surge in numbers. The toll on health-care workers, families, and the victims of the disease has been enormous. Gathered below are photographs from around the world of the current battle against COVID-19, taken over the past few weeks.
Photos: The Reality of the Current Coronavirus Surge
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Marta Fernandez, a nurse, holds up a tablet computer for 94-year-old Maria Teresa Argullos Bove, so that she can speak with her sister, children, and grandchildren from her hospital bed at the COVID-19 ward at the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, Spain, on November 18, 2020. #
Emilio Morenatti / AP -
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A view of treatment blocks inside a temporary hospital set up in Moscow's Krylatskoye Ice Palace, where patients suffering from COVID-19 are treated in Russia, on November 13, 2020 #
Maxim Shemetov / Reuters -
Dr. Joseph Varon hugs and comforts a patient in the COVID-19 intensive-care unit during Thanksgiving at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, on November 26, 2020. #
Go Nakamura / Getty -
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The face screen of a health-care worker with the Special Unit of Regional Assistance Continuity drips with condensation during a visit to patients at home, while testing them for COVID-19, in Rome, Italy, on December 1, 2020. #
Antonio Masiello / Getty -
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Caroline Tesse, a French anesthesiologist, has a video call with her daughter Rose during a break in her four-day shift in the ICU, where patients suffering from COVID-19 are treated at a hospital in Cambrai, France, on November 16, 2020. #
Pascal Rossignol / Reuters -
Tammy Benewiat peers through a window at her husband, who is on a ventilator inside a room for patients with COVID-19, at a hospital in Hutchinson, Kansas, on November 20, 2020. #
Callaghan O'Hare / Reuters -
Medical workers wearing protective equipment prepare to clean rooms in the hallway of a makeshift ICU at the La Timone Hospital in Marseille, France, on November 12, 2020. #
Daniel Cole / AP -
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A medical specialist wearing glasses over a face shield works in the ICU of the Vologda City Hospital Number 1, where patients suffering from COVID-19 are treated, in Vologda, Russia, on November 24, 2020. #
Anton Vaganov / Reuters -
Dr. Ashley Ferrel, a physical therapist, holds the hand of a COVID-19 patient at Roseland Community Hospital on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, on December 1, 2020. #
Shannon Stapleton / Reuters -
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Alma Abad, a nurse, assists the family members of Florence Bolton, 85, a COVID-19 patient, to FaceTime her as she lies in her ICU bed at Roseland Community Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, on December 1, 2020. #
Shannon Stapleton / Reuters -
A cluster of IV poles are stored in a hospital warehouse during the inauguration day of Nurse Isabel Zendal Hospital in Madrid, Spain, on December 1, 2020. The new emergency hospital was built quickly to support the population against pandemics or health emergencies, although the hospital still lacks sufficient medical staff. #
Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Getty -
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A medical staff member closes the zipper of a body bag that contains a deceased COVID-19 patient's body, in the COVID-19 ICU at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, on November 25, 2020. #
Go Nakamura / Getty -
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El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office staff help move bodies that are in bags labeled "Covid" from refrigerated trailers into the morgue amid the COVID-19 outbreak, in El Paso, Texas, on November 23, 2020. #
Ivan Pierre Aguirre / Reuters -
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Cemetery workers carry the coffin of Genivaldo Santos, who died from COVID-19, as relatives cry during his burial at the municipal cemetery in Nova Iguacu, Brazil, on November 25, 2020. #
Silvia Izquierdo / AP -
Municipality workers carry a coffin from an ambulance to the burial area provided by the government for victims of COVID-19, at Pondok Ranggon Cemetery, in Jakarta, Indonesia, on November 25, 2020. #
Willy Kurniawan / Reuters -
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Men dressed in protective suits stand around the coffin of Daniel Alushula, a Kenyan doctor, who died of COVID-19, during his funeral in the village of Khumusalaba, Kenya, on November 13, 2020. #
Baz Ratner / Reuters -
Ignacio Estrada visits the gravesite of his son, Cesar Osvaldo Estrada, who died on November 14 at the age of 47 of COVID-19, at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cemetery in El Paso, Texas, on November 25, 2020. #
Ivan Pierre Aguirre / Reuters -
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Health-care personnel prepare to discharge a patient who had been quarantining after a possible exposure to COVID-19 at a hospital in Lakin, Kansas, on November 19, 2020. #
Callaghan O'Hare / Reuters
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