Italian funeral workers wearing face masks place a coffin carrying the body of a 73-year-old woman into a van for direct transport to a cemetery, without a funeral.

In Spain, weary medical workers protest outside a hospital demanding more protective equipment after a colleague, a nurse, also succumbed to the new coronavirus.

These are the scenes playing out in different countries as health systems strain to cope with the rapidly spreading global pandemic amid a staggering rise in caseloads. Officials in the United States and elsewhere are scrambling to secure medical supplies and hospital beds, setting up makeshift hospitals in preparation for a surge of coronavirus amid shortages of masks and ventilators.

Coffins wait to be transported to cemetery, in the church of Serina, near Bergamo, Northern Italy, March 21, 2020. Italy's tally of coronavirus cases and deaths keeps rising, with new day-to-day highs: 793 dead and 6,557 new cases. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)

With places like Italy and Spain, two of the hardest-hit countries in Europe, essentially in lockdown, several U.S. states are now playing catch-up and ordering their own restrictions on movement to try to contain the virus. That leaves many workers and small businesses worrying about how they’re going to get by and urging the government to do more to support them.

Beaches, city squares, airports, monuments and other normally bustling spaces sat eerily empty around much of the world this week as millions heeded directives to stay home.

But in some other places that have yet to be hammered by the coronavirus, many people continued to go about their daily business, in some cases out of necessity because missing work makes it hard to put food on the table. In South Africa, for example, a Soweto commuter train was so packed that people clung to the outside just to catch a ride.

A man carries a bag as he uses a face mask as a precaution against the spread of the new coronavirus in the Rocinha slum of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, March 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

A biosafety protective suit for handling viral diseases are hung up in a biosafety level 4 training facility at U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., March 19, 2020, where scientists are working to help develop solutions to prevent, detect and treat the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Trucks are jammed in the early morning on Autobahn 12 in front of the German-Polish border crossing near Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, March 18, 2020. (Patrick Pleul/dpa via AP)

An elderly woman, wearing a protective face mask is sprayed with a disinfectant bleach solution by a soldier as a preventive measure against the spread of the new coronavirus, at the entrance of a food market in Caracas, Venezuela, March 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Busker wearing a protective face mask plays the violin in the subway at Nyugati Square during the coronavirus emergency in Budapest, Hungary, March 18, 2020. (Zoltan Balogh/MTI via AP)

A victim of the Covid-19 virus is evacuated from the Mulhouse civil hospital, eastern France, March 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)

People wait their turn for a blood sample in a hallway of a hospital in Barcelona, Spain, March 18, 2020. Spain will mobilize 200 billion euros or the equivalent to one fifth of the country's annual output in loans, credit guarantees and subsidies for workers and vulnerable citizens, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced Tuesday. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some, it can cause more severe illness, especially in older adults and people with existing health problems. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Health services staff members protest outside the Txagorritxu hospital demanding more protection equipment, after a Spanish nurse died Thursday from coronavirus COVID-19 in a hospital, in Vitoria, northern Spain, March 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

A sign calling people to stay home to reduce the spread of the new coronavirus is placed on a statue of the first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion at a beach in Tel Aviv, Israel, March 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Beach goers are scattered along the water front, March 22, 2020, in Port Aransas, Texas. Officials have strongly discouraged large gatherings of spring breakers on the beach due to the coronavirus outbreak. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A worker disinfects around King Tut's famous mask in the Egyptian Museum in an effort to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, March 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Hamada Elrasam)

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