Coronavirus updates: Global death toll surpasses 1 million

The United States leads the world in deaths, with a fifth of all fatalities.

Last Updated: October 6, 2020, 6:36 AM EDT

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

Over 33.2 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 7.1 million diagnosed cases and at least 204,778 deaths.

California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 809,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 758,000 cases and over 700,000 cases, respectively.

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

Latest headlines:

Here's how the news developed today. All times Eastern.
Sep 28, 2020, 9:14 PM EDT

Global death toll surpasses 1 million

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.

Gravediggers burying the body of Covid-19 coronavirus victim at Pondok Ranggon cemetery complex, Jakarta, Sept. 11, 2020.
Aditya Irawan/NurPhoto via Getty Images

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. 

Sep 28, 2020, 8:09 PM EDT

9th ICE detainee dies of coronavirus

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.

Sep 28, 2020, 5:39 PM EDT

Cruise ship crew members test positive off coast of Greece

TUI Cruises confirmed to ABC News that a dozen crew members on a ship off the coast of Greece tested positive for the coronavirus.

The 12 members of the "Mein Schiff 6" crew are asymptomatic and were isolated from other passengers and crew, the company said in a statement. TUI Cruises resumed cruise operations in late July in Germany and started sailing in Greece on Sept 13, according to a spokesperson.

In this May 14, 2017, file photo, the cruise liner "Mein Schiff 6" is shown moored in the port of Hamburg.
Markus Scholz/picture alliance via Newscom, FILE

"To rule out any unlikely case of infections, the persons concerned are currently being tested again with our PCR rapid test device on board. The majority of the results already came out to be negative (9 out of 12)," the company said in a statement.

The ship will stick with its original itinerary and sail to Piraeus tomorrow, the company said in a statement.

ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.

Sep 28, 2020, 2:07 PM EDT

120 million rapid tests to be made available to lower-income countries

At least 120 million rapid diagnostic tests for the coronavirus will be made available, at a maximum cost of $5 per test, to lower- and middle-income countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Monday.

Manufacturers Abbot and SD Biosenser reached an agreement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to "make 120 million of these new, highly portable and easy-to-use rapid COVID-19 diagnostic tests available over a period of six months," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said,

The tests were currently priced at a maximum of $5 each but were expected to become cheaper, according to Tedros.

“This will enable the expansion of testing, particularly in hard-to-reach areas that do not have laboratory facilities or enough trained health workers to carry out tests,” Tedros said.

“This is a vital addition to the testing capacity and especially important in areas of high transmission,” he added.

ABC News' Sohel Uddin contributed to this report.

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