BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

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WASHINGTON -- Presidents of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) have warned of "alarming" political interference in science in the country's response to COVID-19.

"We find ongoing reports and incidents of the politicization of science, particularly the overriding of evidence and advice from public health officials and derision of government scientists, to be alarming," said a recent statement of NAS President Marcia McNutt and NAM President Victor J. Dzau.

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LOS ANGELES -- California State University Long Beach in Southern California announced in a statement on Saturday to place all on-campus students under quarantine after five students attending a gathering tested positive for COVID-19.

In the statement, University President Jane Close Conoley said the decision were made after school officials learned late Friday that a number of students attended an off-campus gathering that went against school COVID-19 guidelines, among whom five students had been tested positive.

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JERUSALEM -- The total number of coronavirus cases in Israel has reached 227,100, with 9,201 new cases, the state's Ministry of Health said on Saturday.

The number of death cases rose to 1,441, with 29 new fatalities, while the number of patients in serious condition rose from 708 to 728, out of 1,436 patients currently hospitalized.

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NEW YORK -- Global COVID-19 deaths surpassed 990,000 on Saturday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

The global death toll rose to 990,738, while there were more than 32.6 million cases worldwide as of 3:23 p.m. (1923 GMT), the CSSE data showed.

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BEIJING -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Saturday that as a good brother, good friend and good partner of its fellow developing countries, China is always ready to help others succeed.

"In such efforts, China puts countries' shared interests first and always seeks to synergize its own development with the common development of all developing countries," said Wang, who is also Chinese state councilor, while delivering a keynote speech at the High-level Video Conference on Poverty Eradication and South-South Cooperation, co-organized by China and the United Nations.

Facing the sudden COVID-19 outbreak, China has sent out 34 medical expert teams to 32 countries, and provided 283 batches of anti-epidemic supplies to 150 countries and four international organizations, he noted.

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OTTAWA -- There have been 150,456 cases of COVID-19 in Canada, including 9,255 deaths, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada on Saturday.

As of Friday, an average of 1,175 cases were being reported daily across Canada over a seven-day period. Friday saw recorded 1,363 cases over a 24-hour period, the highest number since early May. Most cases are in the two most populous provinces Quebec and Ontario.

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LONDON -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday called for greater international cooperation in fighting COVID-19 and preventing future pandemics, saying that "everyone will lose" unless countries join hands to defeat the virus.

In a pre-recorded speech played at the annual general debate of the UN General Assembly in New York, Johnson said, "After nine months of fighting COVID-19, the very notion of the international community looks, frankly, pretty tattered. And we know that we simply can't continue in this way."

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TEHRAN -- The total number of COVID-19 infections confirmed in Iran reached 443,086 on Saturday, after an overnight registration of 3,204 cases, Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education announced.

Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for the ministry, said at her daily briefing 1,274 of the new patients required hospitalization, as quoted in the ministry's website.

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LONDON -- Another 6,042 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 429,277, according to official figures released Saturday.

The coronavirus-related death toll rose by 34 to 41,971, the latest official data showed.