The marble lion "Fortitude" is seen with a face mask in front of the New York Pubulic Library on the Fifth Avenue in New York, the United States, July 8, 2020. The number of COVID-19 cases in the United States surpassed the 3 million mark Wednesday to reach 3,009,611 as of 11:34 a.m. local time (1534 GMT), according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

The US topped 3 million confirmed coronavirus cases on Wednesday as President Donald Trump pushed for schools to reopen amid a COVID-19 resurgence in many southern hot spots.

The US remains by far the worst-affected country, with over 132,000 deaths, while Brazil - whose virus-skeptic President Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for the disease - is a distant second with close to 67,000 deaths from almost 1.7 million cases.

As infections rose by a further 55,000 to reach a total of 3,046,351 on Wednesday, Trump called for students to return to their schools in the fall and lashed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for issuing guidance that he said was too restrictive.

The agency's head later said the guidelines were "not requirements" and that the CDC would soon update its advice.

Harvard and MIT meanwhile sued the administration after it threatened to revoke the visas of foreign students whose entire courses have moved online because of the pandemic.

The virus has infected almost 12 million people worldwide and killed more than 500,000 so far.

Across the world, citizens chafed under renewed restrictions as countries experience fresh waves of disease. 

In the Australian city of Melbourne, millions were preparing for a return to lockdown to fight an upsurge that is seeing more than 100 new cases reported each day, with panic buyers stripping supermarket shelves.

France, which had flattened its curve by imposing a strict lockdown earlier in the pandemic, said Wednesday it was girding for a possible surge in cases.

But, mindful of potentially disastrous consequences of attempting to thrust millions back into their homes, France's new prime minister aimed to soothe fears by promising no new full shutdown.

"We're not going to impose a lockdown like the one we did last March, because we've learned... that the economic and human consequences from a total lockdown are disastrous," Jean Castex said, promising "targeted" measures instead.

AFP