Coronavirus news: US daily death toll shoots back up over 1,000

Nearly 70% of inmates at a jail in central Virginia have tested positive for COVID-19 so far.

The Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover, some 20 miles north of Richmond, announced in a press release Wednesday that 124 of 178 inmates who have been tested for COVID-19 have received positive results. Moreover, 20 of 129 staff members who were tested also had positive results.

The jail has a total population of 380 inmates, who will now all be tested for COVID-19, according to a report by Richmond ABC affiliate WRIC.

The jail said the vast majority of those infected were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms. To date, there have been no hospitalizations or deaths.

"Immediately upon receiving offender results on Monday afternoon, affected individuals were identified and isolated from the general population," the Pamunkey Regional Jail said in the statement. "In an abundance of caution, the jail facility remains on lockdown, pending additional offender testing in collaboration with health department officials."

The jail said it was informed of the first pair of positive COVID-19 cases among its staff on Aug. 20 -- two employees who were immediately instructed to self-isolate. The third positive case was a jail contractor on Aug. 28, followed by a fourth employee on Aug. 31. Each case was individually reported to the local health department.

The first inmate to test positive for COVID-19 was on Sept. 3, after being isolated with cold-like symptoms within the facility for over a week. The local health department then arranged for all jail staff to be tested and performed testing among inmates "in areas where deemed necessary," according to jail officials.

"All affected employees were placed on emergency paid leave, and all offenders continue to be appropriately treated by medical staff, who provide 24/7 on-site patient care," the jail said.

The French government will continue paying up to 84% of salaries for furloughed workers "until next summer" due to prolonged economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, labor minister Elisabeth Borne announced Thursday on France's BFM television.

France has already spent tens of billions of euros on the temporary unemployment scheme since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, in an effort to save jobs. Last week, the government unveiled a 100 billion euro (approximately $118 billion) stimulus plan to help revive its hard-hit economy.

France, along with other European nations, has seen a rise in COVID-19 infections in recent weeks, as people returned to work and school.

France's national public health agency reported 8,577 new cases on Wednesday, the country's second-highest daily increase in COVID-19 infections so far, bringing its cumulative total to 344,101 cases with 30,794 deaths.

ABC News' Ibtissem Guenfoud contributed to this report.

Israel confirmed 3,904 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, its highest day-to-day increase yet.

There were 43,500 COVID-tests performed across the Middle Eastern country on Wednesday, with a positivity rate of 9%. Overall, more than 142,000 people have been diagnosed with the disease and at least 1,054 have died, according to the latest data from the Israeli Ministry of Health.

Since Tuesday, some 40 cities and towns across Israel have remained under a nightly curfew as part of efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

ABC News' Bruno Nota contributed to this report.

India confirmed 95,735 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, marking yet another single-day record increase in infections across the country.

The country’s cumulative total now stands at 4.46 million cases with 75,062 deaths, after another 1,172 fatalities in the last 24 hours, according to the latest data from the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

India has the second-highest tally of cases in the world and the third-highest death toll in the coronavirus pandemic, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

India's health ministry said the surge in new infections is due to increased testing, with more than 1 million tests now being conducted each day across the vast country of 1.3 billion people. So far, nearly 3.3 million people in India have recovered from COVID-19.