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Worldwide coronavirus cases top 30 million

The total number of global cases has doubled since July 22.

ByMorgan Winsor and Emily Shapiro
Last Updated: September 18, 2020, 2:34 PM EDT

A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 942,000 people worldwide.

Over 30 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 6.6 million diagnosed cases and at least 197,397 deaths.

California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 773,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 697,000 cases and over 674,000 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 17, 2020, 5:30 AM EDT

US sees nearly 17% jump in coronavirus-related deaths

An internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency obtained by ABC News on Wednesday night showed that the current national trend in new cases is only slightly down while the trend in new deaths is way up.

There were 261,204 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States during the period of Sept. 9-15, a 0.7% decrease from the previous week. Meanwhile, 5,906 coronavirus-related deaths were recorded during that same period, a 16.6% increase compared with the seven days prior, according to the FEMA memo.

The national positivity rate for COVID-19 tests currently stands at 4.4%, a 0.1% decrease over the past week, according to the memo.

ABC News' Josh Margolin contributed to this report.

Sep 17, 2020, 4:48 AM EDT

US reports nearly 37,000 new cases, just under 1,000 deaths

There were 36,782 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Wednesday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Wednesday's tally is far below the country’s record set on July 16, when there were 77,255 new cases in a 24-hour-reporting period.

An additional 977 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded Wednesday, down from a peak of 2,666 new fatalities reported on April 17.

People pass by a mural of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top expert on the coronavirus pandemic and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in the East Village neighborhood of New York City on Sept. 16, 2020.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

A total of 6,630,892 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 196,802 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.

Sep 17, 2020, 4:27 AM EDT

India records world's highest increase in new cases

India confirmed 97,894 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, marking the highest single-day increase in infections worldwide since the coronavirus pandemic began.

An additional 1,132 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded. The country's cumulative total now stands at 5,118,253 cases and 83,198 deaths, according to the latest data from the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

A woman wearing white personal protective equipment reacts as she takes a glimpse of her husband's body, a victim of COVID-19, in Gauhati, India, on Sept. 10, 2020.
Anupam Nath/AP

India has the second-highest tally of COVID-19 cases in the world and the third-highest death toll in the coronavirus pandemic, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. The relatively low death toll in a vast county of 1.3 billion people is raising questions about how it's counting coronavirus fatalities.

India has reported more than 1 million cases this month alone. Based on the current rate of infection, India is expected within weeks to become the pandemic's worst-hit nation, surpassing the United States, where more than 6.6 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19.

India's health ministry has attributed the surge in infections to increased testing. The country is conducting more than 1 million COVID-19 tests per day.

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