Coronavirus updates: US will soon have 'half a million' deaths, incoming CDC chief says
The U.S. is forecast to have almost 500,000 COVID-19 deaths by mid-February.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 94.2 million people worldwide and killed over 2 million of them, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
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About 1 in 3 has been infected in LA County
About one in every three people in Los Angeles County has been infected with COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, Los Angeles County Health Department officials said Wednesday.
Los Angeles County is close to becoming the county to reach 1 million cases. As of Thursday morning, 958,497 people in the county had been infected.
ABC News’ Bonnie Mclean contributed to this report.
Arizona leading US in cases per capita
The U.S. is averaging over 242,000 new cases per day, according to ABC News’ analysis of COVID Tracking Project data.
Arizona is leading the country in cases per capita.
In Virginia, Georgia and Florida, daily case numbers dwarf their respective summer peaks.
In New York, the average number of daily cases is 65% higher than during the spring surge.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
Turkey's president gets 1st dose of China's COVID-19 vaccine
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday received a first dose of CoronaVac, a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac, according to state-owned Anadolu news agency.
Turkey approved CoronaVac for emergency use on Wednesday. Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca was the first person in the country to receive a dose of the vaccine.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.
Pope Francis, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI receive 1st dose of COVID-19 vaccine
Pope Francis and his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.
"I can confirm that as part of the Vatican City State vaccination program to date, the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine has been administered to Pope Francis and the Pope Emeritus," Bruni said in a statement Thursday.
Francis, who turned 84 last month and had part of a lung removed when he was younger, reportedly received the shot Wednesday while Benedict, 93, reportedly got it Thursday.
Vatican City, an independent enclave surrounded by Rome that serves as the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, launched the immunization campaign on Wednesday, administering doses of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
The tiny city-state has a population of only around 800 people but employs more than 4,000. It's unclear how many doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have been procured so far.
Vatican City citizens, along with employees and pensioners, will have the opportunity to receive the vaccine as well as family members who are entitled to use of the city-state's health care system. Priority is being given to health care workers, public safety personnel, the elderly and individuals who are most frequently in contact with the public, according to Bruni.
The vaccination campaign is voluntary and people under the age of 18 are being excluded for the time being, Bruni said.
Since the start of the pandemic, Vatican City has reported at least 27 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
ABC News' Phoebe Natanson contributed to this report.
1 American death from COVID-19 is reported every 30 seconds
It's just over a week into 2021 and the United States has already seen its worst week on record for both COVID-19 infections and deaths.
In the first 10 days of the month, the country has recorded some 2.35 million COVID-19 cases and more than 28,000 deaths from the disease. That works out to be around 163 Americans diagnosed with COVID-19 every minute, and approximately one American death from the disease reported every 30 seconds, according to an ABC News analysis of data compiled by The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the U.S. outbreak.
The U.S. has not seen a day with fewer than 100,000 new cases in more than two months, with a record-high average of 243,000 newly confirmed infections every day. In the last week alone, that average of daily cases has increased by approximately 16.3%.
Sunday marked the 41st consecutive day with more than 1,000 fatalities from COVID-19 reported nationwide. The country's average of daily deaths jumped by 21.4% in the last seven days.
Meanwhile, more than 129,000 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 across the U.S. -- a number that has hovered around 130,000 for the last several days.
At the current rate, January could surpass December's staggering COVID-19 totals to become the nation's hardest hit month of the pandemic.
ABC News' Brian Hartman and Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.