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

In hard-hit California, the daily number of new COVID-19 cases fell below 20,000 on Wednesday, while the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals is also on the decline, California’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. Mark Ghaly, told ABC's "GMA3: What You Need To Know."

Ghaly attributed the progress to "the ongoing work of Californians to pay attention to the virus."

"After what was a hard Thanksgiving holiday, I think the regional stay-at-home order that the governor put in place made a difference over the winter holidays," Ghaly said. "We're starting to see that pay off now."

"Almost to the day, three weeks after putting [stay-at-home orders] into place in some of the hardest hit areas, we started to see the numbers come down," he added.

The state's stay-at-home orders are enacted when a region's intensive care unit capacity falls below 15%. Stay-at-home orders are currently in effect in three of the state's five regions: Southern California, the Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley.

COVID-19 vaccinations are also ramping up.

"The governor gave us a million-vaccine challenge over 10 days that ended last week," Ghaly said. "And we saw a radical increase going from about 40,000-47,000 vaccines given in a day at the beginning of that challenge to over 110,000 vaccines given a day across the state."

California, which has a population of 39.5 million people, has the highest tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases of any U.S. state, with over 3 million patients diagnosed, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Glastonbury Festival, the largest greenfield music festival in the world, has been canceled for the second year in a row due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"With great regret, we must announce that this year’s Glastonbury Festival will not take place, and that this will be another enforced fallow year for us," the festival's organizers, Michael and Emily Eavis, said in a statement Thursday. "In spite of our efforts to move Heaven & Earth, it has become clear that we simply will not be able to make the Festival happen this year. We are so sorry to let you all down."

The world-famous event typically takes place over the course of five days on the organizers' dairy farm in the village of Pilton in southwest England, with star-studded lineups that attract around 200,000 attendees each year. Last year's festival, the 50th anniversary with Paul McCartney due to headline, was also canceled because of the pandemic.

"As with last year, we would like to offer all those who secured a ticket in October 2019 the opportunity to roll their £50 deposit over to next year, and guarantee the chance to buy a ticket for Glastonbury 2022," the organizers said. "We are very appreciative of the faith and trust placed in us by those of you with deposits, and we are very confident we can deliver something really special for us all in 2022!"

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced Thursday that one of the ministers in his cabinet has died from COVID-19.

Jackson Mthembu, minister in the presidency, died earlier Thursday from complications related to the disease, according to Ramaphosa. He was 62.

"Minister Mthembu was an exemplary leader, an activist and life-long champion of freedom and democracy," Ramaphosa said in a statement. "He was a much-loved and greatly respected colleague and comrade, whose passing leaves our nation at a loss."

Mthembu played a prominent role in South Africa's COVID-19 response and was often the public face during press briefings. He had announced via Twitter on Jan. 11 that he tested positive for COVID-19.

Since the start of the pandemic, South Africa has confirmed more than 1.3 million cases of COVID-19, including at least 38,854 deaths. The country has the highest tally of confirmed cases in Africa, accounting for 41% of the continent's diagnosed infections, according to the latest data from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top expert on the coronavirus pandemic, said rejoining the World Health Organization was "very important" and that the country's withdrawal from the United Nations agency "was very disconcerting to everybody."

"It's going to be really very important. When you're dealing with global pandemic, you have to have an international connectivity, and for us to not be in the WHO was very disconcerting to everybody, all the member countries including the health officials here in the United States," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC News' Michael Strahan in an interview Thursday on "Good Morning America."

Earlier Thursday, Fauci announced via video link to the WHO's executive board in Geneva that the United States will remain a member, will fulfil its financial obligations to the organization and will stop reducing its staff there.

Fauci also told the board that U.S. President Joe Biden 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.

The announcement came just hours after Biden, who was sworn-in Wednesday, 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.

"The official announcement that we are rejoining, we're going to live up to our financial commitments and a whole bunch of other things, it was really a very good day. I mean, the response I'm getting from my colleagues all over the world is really very refreshing," Fauci said on "GMA."

Fauci, who is Biden's chief medical adviser on the coronavirus pandemic, said he will meet with the president later Thursday to brief him on the U.S. outbreak and the vaccine situation.

"The president has made this his top priority," he said. "His goal is to get 100 million people vaccinated within the first 100 days of his presidency. I mean, I feel fairly confident that that's going to be not only that but maybe even better."

Fauci said the contractual agreements the U.S. has made to procure COVID-19 vaccines will help meet that goal, along with new initiatives to open community vaccination centers and make the vaccines available in pharmacies. He said Biden may also use the Defense Production Act "wherever he needs it." The 1950 wartime law requires private companies to prioritize any product orders from the federal government over others.

"As he says, he's going to do everything that he needs to do to make sure we have a successful roll out of the vaccines, get it into peoples arms and get as many people vaccinated as we possibly can," Fauci said. "I think we can look forward to having more companies supplying vaccines in addition to the two now that are doing it, namely Moderna and Pfizer."

Fauci said an RNA virus like the novel coronavirus can be expected to mutate but some of the new strains that have emerged are "concerning" and must be followed "very, very carefully."

"There are some concerning variants, there's one in the U.K. and we have that right now in the United States. It appears to be transmitted more efficiently, it doesn't appear to be more virulent," he said. "We're looking very carefully to make sure that our vaccines that we're distributing and putting into peoples arms [are] going to continue to protect against those variants."