Coronavirus updates: Herd immunity by fall 'ambitious,' says surgeon general nominee

Some 900,000 workers in the United States lost their jobs and filed for unemployment insurance last week, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday. 

This is a decrease of 26,000 jobless claims compared to the previous week.

The Department of Labor said Thursday that nearly 16 million people were still claiming some form of unemployment benefits through all government programs as of the week ending Jan. 2. During the same week last year, that figure was 2.2 million. 

The coronavirus pandemic as well as measures to curb the virus’ spread have gutted the U.S. labor market. Before the pandemic hit, in February 2020, the national unemployment rate was at a half-century low of 3.5%. As of last month, the unemployment rate was 6.7%. 

ABC News’ Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now projects that the country will have recorded up to 508,000 COVID-19 deaths by mid-February.

The CDC on Wednesday published its latest national ensemble forecast, which predicts that 17,000 to 29,300 new fatalities from COVID-19 will likely be reported in the week ending Feb. 13. A total of 465,000 to 508,000 deaths from the disease are projected to be reported nationwide by this date.

Last week's national ensemble forecast predicted there would be a total of 440,000 to 477,000 COVID-19 deaths reported nationwide by Feb. 6.

The United States will remain a member of the World Health Organization, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, announced Thursday.

Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made the announcement via video link to the WHO's executive board in Geneva, a day after Joe Biden was sworn-in as the 46th president of the U.S.

"I am honored to announce the United States will remain a member of the World Health Organization," Fauci told the board Thursday, adding that the U.S. will also "fulfil its financial obligations" to the WHO and stop reducing its staff at the United Nations agency..

Fauci, who is Biden's chief medical adviser on the coronavirus pandemic, also announced that the president will issue a directive Thursday that shows the country's intent to join the COVAX Facility, a global initiative to ensure rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all countries regardless of income.

Within hours of becoming president, Biden had signed an executive order reversing former President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the WHO. Trump had accused the organization of failing to correctly respond to the coronavirus pandemic and of allegedly giving too much power to China.

There were 178,255 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States on Wednesday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

The latest daily case count is far less than the country's all-time high of 298,031 newly confirmed infections on Jan. 2, Johns Hopkins data shows.

An additional 4,231 fatalities from COVID-19 were registered nationwide on Wednesday, just under the peak of 4,462 new deaths on Jan. 12, according to Johns Hopkins data.

COVID-19 data may be skewed due to possible lags in reporting over the holiday weekend and earlier holidays.

A total of 24,438,720 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 406,147 have died, according to Johns Hopkins data. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

Much of the country was under lockdown by the end of March as the first wave of pandemic hit. 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 over the summer.

The numbers lingered around 40,000 to 50,000 from mid-August through early October before surging again to record levels, crossing 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4, then reaching 200,000 on Nov. 27 before nearing 300,000 on Jan. 2.