Coronavirus updates: Global death toll surpasses 1 million

New COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are continuing to climb, while the death rate declined slightly from last week, according to an internal FEMA memo obtained by ABC News.

Twenty-six states and territories are seeing an upward trajectory of new cases, with 17 seeing cases go down and 13 experiencing a plateau, the memo said.

The 309,070 new cases reported during the week of Sept. 21-27 represent a 9.1% increase over the previous seven-day period, said the memo.

The 5,304 deaths recorded during the week is a 0.3% decrease from the previous week.

The nation's test-positivity rate was unchanged at 4.4%, according to the memo.

Chicago officials are loosening COVID-19 restrictions on restaurants, bars, and other select businesses.

Citing a drop in the city's daily case rate, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that establishments with indoor seating will be able to serve at 40% of capacity, up from the 25% capacity those establishments had been limited to.

Bars will be able to operate at up to 25% capacity, and fitness classes will be able to admit up to 15 participants, as part of the updated regulations.

The new rules will go into effect on Thursday.

The coronavirus has killed over 1 million people worldwide, according to data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

By comparison, six U.S. states have a population under a million people, as do three dozen nations including Fiji, Guyana, Luxembourg, Iceland and the Bahamas.

The global death toll reached half a million at the end of June, more than five months after the first COVID-19 related death was recorded in China. It took three months for that number to double worldwide.

The United States leads the world in deaths, with over 205,000 fatalities and counting. Brazil has the second most deaths with over 141,000 and counting.

The two previous major global pandemics, the 1957-1958 H2N2 pandemic and the 1968 H3N2 pandemic, each also killed around 1 million people worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The 1918 Spanish flu, the worst pandemic in modern times, killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. 

Representatives from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Monday that a 56-year-old man who was in their custody died from COVID-19 in a Louisiana hospital.

Romien Jally was the ninth ICE detainee reported to die from the virus, as well as the 22nd person to die in ICE custody this fiscal year -- the highest number of deaths in ICE custody in the last 15 years.

There were only eight reported deaths of ICE detainees during the previous fiscal year, according to the agency.

Jally initially entered the U.S. lawfully on October 24, 2003, in Honolulu, Hawaii, under the Compact of Free Association as a nonimmigrant, ICE said.

He was arrested on May 1 on sex assault charges and was ordered to be deported to the Marshall Islands on Aug 4, according to ICE.

Jally was diagnosed with the virus on Aug. 25.