Coronavirus updates: Virus can linger in air for hours, CDC says

The CDC posted new guidance on its website warning people about airborne spread.

ByMorgan Winsor and Ivan Pereira
Video byJessie DiMartino
Last Updated: October 6, 2020, 5:32 AM EDT

A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 1 million people worldwide.

Over 35.3 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 7.4 million diagnosed cases and at least 210,013 deaths.

California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 833,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 791,000 cases and over 717,000 cases, respectively.

More than 190 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are being tracked by the World Health Organization, at least seven of which are in crucial phase three trials.

Latest headlines:

Here's how the news developed today. All times Eastern.
Oct 05, 2020, 5:47 AM EDT

Paris and its suburbs will move to 'maximum alert zone'

French Prime Minister Jean Castex has ordered Paris and its inner suburbs to be placed on maximum COVID-19 alert with new restrictions due to rising cases.

Castex's office told Agence France-Presse on Sunday that the French capital had "crossed the three thresholds corresponding to the maximum alert zone several days ago and this trend was confirmed over the weekend."

The restrictive measures, which will be laid out at a press conference with the city's mayor Monday morning, will come into force on Tuesday and will last for two weeks. Being put on the highest level of alert means bars will be forced to close during that time and restaurants will have to impose new sanitary protocols in order to stay open.

A woman wearing a face mask walks past a closed restaurant in Paris, France, on Oct. 5, 2020, before the announcement of reinforced restrictions due to rising COVID-19 cases.
Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

The move comes after bars and restaurants in the French port city of Marseille and nearby Aix-en-Provence were ordered to shut their doors last week as the number of COVID-19 infections climbed. The businesses are allowed to reopen this week, in accordance with a reinforced sanitary protocol.

France is not the only country seeing a resurgence in COVID-19 cases. Other European nations including Spain and the United Kingdom are also grappling with growing outbreaks.

Since the start of the pandemic, France's public health agency has confirmed more than 619,000 cases with at least 32,230 deaths.

ABC News' Ibtissem Guenfoud contributed to this report.

Oct 05, 2020, 4:28 AM EDT

US reports more than 35,000 new cases

There were 35,504 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Sunday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Sunday'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 337 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded Sunday, down from a peak of 2,666 new fatalities reported on April 17.

A health care worker collects a swab sample from a motorist at a drive-through COVID-19 testing center at the M.T.O. Shahmaghsoudi School of Islamic Sufism in Los Angeles, California, on Sept. 29, 2020.
Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

A total of 7,418,107 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 209,725 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 but has hovered around 40,000 in recent weeks.

An internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency obtained by ABC News on Friday night shows that the number of new cases recorded in the United States is continuing to increase slightly while the number of new deaths increased significantly in week-over-week comparisons.

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