Worldwide coronavirus cases top 30 million

The coronavirus crisis has pushed 150 million more children into poverty, according to an analysis published Wednesday night by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the U.K.-based charity Save the Children.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of children living in deprivation in low- and middle-income countries has increased by 15% to approximately 1.2 billion. The multidimensional poverty analysis used data on access to education, health care, housing, nutrition, sanitation and water from more than 70 countries.

Although the report already paints a dire picture, UNICEF warned the situation will likely worsen in the coming months.

"COVID-19 and the lockdown measures imposed to prevent its spread have pushed millions of children deeper into poverty," UNICEF executive director Henrietta Fore said in a statement Wednesday. "Families on the cusp of escaping poverty have been pulled back in, while others are experiencing levels of deprivation they have never seen before. Most concerningly, we are closer to the beginning of this crisis than its end."

The analysis noted that not only are more children across the globe experiencing poverty than before, but the poorest children are getting poorer as well.

UNICEF and Save the Children said they are both committed to continue to monitor the situation while working with governments and civil society to confront it.

"This pandemic has already caused the biggest global education emergency in history, and the increase in poverty will make it very hard for the most vulnerable children and their families to make up for the loss," Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing said in a statement Wednesday. "Children who lose out on education are more likely to be forced into child labour or early marriage and be trapped in a cycle of poverty for years to come. We cannot afford to let a whole generation of children become victims of this pandemic. National governments and the international community must step up to soften the blow."

ABC News' Dragana Jovanovic contributed to this report.

Some 860,000 Americans lost their jobs and filed for unemployment insurance last week, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday.

The latest tally shows that the nationwide number of new jobless claims have dropped significantly since peaking at 6.9 million in the last week of March. Still, the figure shatters the pre-pandemic weekly record set in 1982 of 695,000.

More than 29 million people across the country are currently receiving unemployment benefits under state and federal programs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

ABC News' Catherine Thorbecke and Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.

Dozens of university campuses in major cities across France are reporting COVID-19 outbreaks, according to various local media outlets.

The affected cities reportedly include Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Rennes and Toulouse.

In a recent interview with French newspaper Ouest-France, the country's minister of higher education, Frederique Vidal, said the clusters of cases emerging on university campuses are "mostly linked to private gatherings," such as student parties. Still, Vidal said she wants to maintain in-person classes "because it is important that teachers and students meet," particularly first-year students "who need benchmarks."

French student unions, on the other hand, have laid the blame on overcrowded lecture halls.

Since the start of the academic year, at least 81 schools across France have been closed and 2,100 classes have been cancelled due to COVID-19.

"We have seen around 1,200 new COVID cases among school pupils this week," France's minister of national education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, told reporters Wednesday. "Classes are closed as soon as there are three positive cases."

ABC News' Ibtissem Guenfoud contributed to this report.

A 2-month-old baby in Michigan has died from COVID-19.

Michigan's chief medical executive, Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, announced the infant's death during a press conference Wednesday, while discussing how children are not spared from the novel coronavirus.

"I was so saddened to hear this news," Khaldun said. "My condolences go out to their parents and family."

Nearly 800 children across the United States have been diagnosed with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a new pediatric disease associated with COVID-19 that can cause multiple organs to fail, according to Khaldun.

"Studies show that while children are less likely to get severely ill from COVID-19, they still can and they can also pass it on to others," Khaldun said, while urging people to wear masks, wash their hands and maintain social distancing.

"COVID-19 is not something to be taken lightly," she added.

Twenty children under the age of 1 have died of COVID-19 nationwide as of Sept. 12, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.