UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson later this week is expected to announce a round of restrictions designed to act as a "circuit breaker" to slow the spread of the disease.

British Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty warned that cases are doubling every seven days and the experience in other countries shows that will soon lead to a rise in deaths.

"We have, in a very bad sense, literally turned a corner," after weeks of rising infections, Whitty said.

In France, where infections reached a record high the weekend with more than 13,000 new cases in 24 hours, health authorities opened new testing centres in the Paris region to reduce lines and delays.

The Norwegian capital of Oslo banned crowds of more than 10 people in private homes after a spike in cases and strongly urged people to wear face masks when travelling on public transportation amid a strike by bus drivers that forced many commuters to take the tram instead.

"The situation in Oslo is serious. This development must be stopped and we have to do it now," Mayor Raymond Johansen said.

Police in the Spanish capital of Madrid and its surrounding towns began stopping people going in and out of working-class neighbourhoods that have been partially locked down to combat Europe's fastest coronavirus spread.

Authorities said that starting on Wednesday, 860,000 residents must be able to show that their trips out of their neighbourhoods are justified for work, study or medical reasons or face fines.

Parks are closed and shops and restaurants in the affected zones are limited to 50 per cent occupancy.

The targeted locations have some of the highest transmission rates in Europe.

The measure has been met with protests from people who think the restrictions are stigmatising the poor.

The German city of Munich, with one of the highest infection rates in Germany, will allow only up to five people or members of two households to meet, and will restrict private indoor gatherings such as birthday parties, weddings or funerals to no more than 25 people.

The Czech Republic also faces the possibility of new restrictions after the government appointed epidemiologist Roman Prymula as health minister.

In the northern spring, the country recorded a relatively low number of COVID-19 cases and deaths compared with hard-hit western European countries such as Italy, Spain and the UK.

But after the government lifted most of its restrictions over the northern summer, confirmed cases began making a comeback and reached a record high last week.

India recorded nearly 87,000 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours on Monday as it edged closer to the United States in having the most reported cases in the world.

The health ministry also reported 1130 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the total reported fatalities to 87,882.

India now has more than 5.4 million reported cases and the country of 1.3 billion people is expected to become the pandemic's worst-hit country within weeks, surpassing the United States which has 6.8 million.

The coronavirus-related death toll in the United States reached 199,630 on Monday, by the far the highest number of any country.

The US, on a weekly average, is losing about 800 lives each day to the virus.

That is down from a peak of 2806 daily deaths recorded on April 15.

During the early months of the pandemic, 200,000 deaths was regarded by many as the maximum number of lives likely to be lost in the US to the virus.

Australian Associated Press