Coronavirus updates: State declares public health emergency over case 'surge'

Wisconsin is seeing an "alarming increase," especially at colleges.

ByMorgan Winsor and Emily Shapiro
Video byJessie DiMartino
Last Updated: September 29, 2020, 4:58 AM EDT

A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 968,000 people worldwide.

Over 31.4 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The criteria for diagnosis -- through clinical means or a lab test -- has varied from country-to-country. Still, the actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some national governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their outbreaks.

Since the first cases were detected in China in December, the virus has rapidly spread to every continent except Antarctica.

The United States is the worst-affected country, with more than 6.8 million diagnosed cases and at least 200,768 deaths.

California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 793,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 741,000 cases and over 687,000 cases, respectively.

Nearly 170 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are being tracked by the World Health Organization, at least six of which are in crucial phase three trials.

Latest headlines:

Here's how the news is developing today. All times Eastern.
Sep 22, 2020, 4:50 AM EDT

US death toll less than 200 away from hitting 200,000 mark

An additional 356 coronavirus-related fatalities were recorded in the United States on Monday, bringing the country's death toll even closer to the 200,000 mark, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Monday's tally of COVID-19 deaths is well under the country's record set on April 17, when there were 2,666 new fatalities in a 24-hour reporting period.

There were also 52,070 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed across the nation on Sunday, down from a peak of 77,255 new cases reported on July 16.

Political activists from the group Refuse Facism Los Angeles unfurl a banner reading "200,000 COVID DEATHS! TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW" over a freeway in downtown Los Angeles, California, on Sept. 18, 2020.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

A total of 6,857,967 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 199,884 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.

Related Topics