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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WHO experts investigating virus origins arrive in Wuhan
An international team of 13 scientists researching the origins of COVID-19 arrived Thursday in Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus was first discovered, according to the World Health Organization.
"The experts will begin their work immediately during the 2 weeks quarantine protocol for international travelers," the WHO wrote on Twitter.
All team members had to be tested for COVID-19 again in Singapore before flying to China. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were all negative, but two IgM antibody tests returned positive results. Those two scientists remain in Singapore as they are retested, according to the WHO.
965,000 US workers filed jobless claims last week
A total of 965,000 workers in the United States filed jobless claims last week, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday, an increase of 181,000 from the prior week.
The Labor Department also said that more than 18 million people were still receiving some form of unemployment benefits through all government programs for the week ending Dec. 26. For the comparable week in 2019, that figure was just above 2 million.
The weekly unemployment tally has fallen since peaking at 6.9 million in March but still remains elevated by historical standards.
The pre-pandemic record for weekly unemployment filings was 695,000 in 1982.
That record has been broken every week since late March.
As of last month, the unemployment rate in the U.S. was 6.7%. It was 3.5% last February.
-ABC News’ Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report
US could see up to 477,000 COVID-19 deaths by Feb. 6
This week’s national ensemble forecast released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that 16,200 to 29,600 more Americans will likely die from COVID-19 in the week ending Feb. 2.
The national ensemble estimates a total of 440,000 to 477,000 deaths from the disease will be reported nationwide by that date.
Nearly all US metro areas 'in full resurgence': White House task force
Nearly all U.S. metro areas with over 500,000 people are in "full resurgence" of COVID-19, the White House coronavirus task force said in its latest report, obtained by ABC News Wednesday.
In the report, dated Jan. 10, the task force said the fall/winter surge has had nearly twice the rate of rise in COVID-19 cases as the spring and summer surges.
Several states, including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico and South Carolina, are also in "full pandemic resurgence," the report stated.
Only "aggressive mitigation" can "match a more aggressive virus," and Americans must take more precautions, "moving beyond what worked in the summer to more layered mitigation," the report stated.
The task force recommended uniform mask implementation and "strict physical distancing." Without that, "epidemics could quickly worsen as more transmissible variants spread and become predominant," it warned.
ABC News' Josh Margolin and Brian Hartman contributed to this report.
3rd House Democrat tests positive after sheltering with unmasked Republicans
Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., said he tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, becoming the third Democrat to do so after sheltering at the Capitol with several Republicans who were unmasked for "several hours” during Wednesday’s siege.
After “narrowly escaping” the violence, Schneider said in a statement, “I was forced to spend several hours in a secure but confined location with dozens of other Members of Congress. Several Republican lawmakers in the room adamantly refused to wear a mask.”
“I am now in strict isolation, worried that I have risked my wife’s health and angry at the selfishness and arrogance of the anti-maskers who put their own contempt and disregard for decency ahead of the health and safety of their colleagues and our staff,” he continued.
Schneider said he hasn't had any symptoms and that he drove home from Washington, D.C., to Illinois.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, both Democrats, have also said they tested positive following the Capitol siege.
Schneider is joining the growing number of Democrats demanding that the House sanction members who don’t wear masks on the House floor.
At a virtual press conference Tuesday, Schneider said, "I don’t know from whom I got this virus or even necessarily if I got it in that room. But I know that my exposure in that room was greater than at any other time through this entire pandemic.”
ABC News’ Ben Siegel and Matthew Vann contributed to this report.