Coronavirus latest: 'Largest mass fatality incident' in New York City: Report

A controversial guideline posted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month about who should be tested for COVID-19 was approved by the agency's director, Dr. Robert Redfield, according to Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"It absolutely came from the CDC," Giroir, a key member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force who is in charge of coordinating the government's testing efforts, told ABC News' Cecilia Vega in an interview Friday on "Good Morning America."

The guideline in question said it wasn't necessary to test people without COVID-19 symptoms, even if they had been exposed to the virus.

"There are thousands of people at the CDC. I have no idea who The New York Times talked to, but I know for a fact that the version that went to the task force was reviewed and approved by Dr. Redfield," Giroir continued. "It was reviewed and approved by the senior scientist who was the incident manager and in multiple emails to me said that the pertinent issues were reviewed by subject matter experts."

Giroir was referring to a recent article by The New York Times that reported the guideline was not written by CDC scientists and was posted to the agency's website despite their serious objections. The article cited several people familiar with the matter as well as internal documents obtained by the newspaper.

During the interview on "GMA," Giroir disputed that the guideline recommended against testing those who are asymptomatic and said more clarification would be released soon.

"In fact, there were specific recommendations to test asymptomatic (individuals) in outbreak areas," he noted. "What they said was, if you're asymptomatic after exposure, you should do it within the context of public health or medical advice." he noted.

"I want people to know that if you are asymptomatic you can still spread the virus and we want them to be tested," he added.

Giroir, who is also a medical doctor, said politics is not part of the decision-making that is happening on the coronavirus task force and that it is a "science-based, evidence-based process ... with the scientists leading."

He agreed with Redfield's recent statement on Capitol Hill that a potential COVID-19 vaccine won't be widely available until the middle of next year.

"But the point that I want to emphasize is, we could immunize 5% or 10% of the population and get 90% of the benefit by ring-fencing the vulnerable, like in nursing homes or vaccinating our teachers or those who have hypertensions," Giroir said. "If we had a vaccine, even a few million in November, it could make an enormous impact on the health of the country. But it is also true that everyone who wants a vaccine may not be able to get it till mid-next year."

ABC News' Kelly McCarthy contributed to this report.

Week-over-week comparisons show the number of new COVID-19 cases and the number of new deaths are both increasing in the United States, according to an internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency obtained by ABC News on Thursday night.

Eleven U.S. states and territories are in an upward trajectory of new cases, while 12 jurisdictions are at a plateau and 32 others are going down, the memo said.

There were 269,769 new cases confirmed across the nation during the period of Sept 10-16, a 5.3% jump from the previous week. Meanwhile, 6,015 coronavirus-related deaths were recorded during that same period, a 16.3% increase compared with the seven days prior, according to the memo.

The national positivity rate for COVID-19 tests ticked downward slightly to 4.5%, compared with 5.1% for the previous week, the memo said.

FEMA maps and charts also show a number of emerging COVID-19 hotspots in Wisconsin, which reported a record-breaking 2,034 new cases on Thursday.

Meanwhile, in Arkansas, 12.9% of new cases on Sept. 11 were attributed to colleges and universities. Half of all cases in the state are individuals aged 18 to 44, according to the memo.

In Florida, data released by the state health department shows that cases among children younger than 18 have increased by 26% since schools reopened for in-person instruction a month ago. The northern city of Gainesville reported a 91% relative increase in new cases during the period of Sept. 7-13, compared to the seven days prior. The spike was linked to outbreaks among sports teams and other students at the University of Florida, where the COVID-19 test positivity rate stands at 27.1%, the memo said.

In Indiana's Monroe County, new cases increased by a relative rate of 61.9% during the period of Sept. 7-13, compared to the previous week. The surge continues to be driven by Indiana University's campus in Bloomington, where fraternity and sorority housing had a COVID-19 test positivity rate of 24.56% for the week ending Sept. 11, according to the memo.

ABC News' Josh Margolin contributed to this report.

There were 44,360 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Thursday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Thursday's tally is well below the country’s record set on July 16, when there were 77,255 new cases in a 24-hour-reporting period.

An additional 870 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded Thursday, down from a peak of 2,666 new fatalities reported on April 17.

A total of 6,675,564 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 197,643 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country's cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up and crossing 70,000 for the first time in mid-July. The daily tally of new cases has gradually come down since then.

India confirmed another 96,424 COVID-19 cases and 1,174 more fatalities in the past 24 hours.

The daily case count is just under the world record that India had set the previous day of 97,894 COVID-19 cases confirmed within a 24-hour reporting period. The country's cumulative total now stands at more than 5.21 million cases with 84,372 deaths, according to the latest data from the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

India has the second-highest tally of COVID-19 cases in the world and the third-highest death toll in the coronavirus pandemic, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. However, based on the current rate of infection, India is expected within weeks to become the pandemic's worst-hit nation, surpassing the United States, where more than 6.6 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19.

India has reported more than 1 million cases this month alone, which the health ministry has attributed to increased testing. The vast country of 1.3 billion people is conducting more than 1 million COVID-19 tests per day.