Coronavirus updates: 84% of California population to go on lockdown Sunday night
More than 33 million people in the state will be affected by the lockdown.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 66.4 million people and killed over 1.5 million worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
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LA County sees record number of new cases
Los Angeles County reported its highest number of new COVID-19 cases yet on Thursday, as the virus continues to surge in the region.
There were 7,854 new daily cases, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said, breaking a record set on Tuesday.
There were 44 new deaths and 2,572 current hospitalizations, officials said. The county is at 76% occupancy of overall intensive care unit capacity.
Under new restrictions in response to the surge, residents are urged to stay home as much as possible and not gather with people outside their household until Dec. 20.
-ABC News' Cammeron Parrish contributed to this report
CDC: Up to 329K could die by Christmas
Nearly 329,000 people could die from COVID-19 by Dec. 26, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
The agency's latest national ensemble forecast predicts that the number of newly reported COVID-19 deaths will likely increase over the next four weeks, with 9,500 to 19,500 new deaths likely to be reported in the week ending Dec. 26.
The national ensemble predicts that 303,000 to 329,000 total COVID-19 deaths will be reported by this date. The U.S. death toll currently stands at 275,550, according to Johns Hopkins University.
On Wednesday, CDC Director Robert Redfield warned that as many as 472,000 people might die from the virus by February.
-ABC News' Anne Flaherty
New stay-at-home advisory issued in Delaware
A new stay-at-home advisory in Delaware will ban residents from gathering indoors with anyone not in their household, reported ABC Philadelphia station WPVI.
The order will last from Dec. 14 to Jan. 11.
Gov. John Carney also announced a new mask mandate requiring masks whenever indoors with someone from outside the household.
1st vaccine doses arrive in UK
The first vaccine doses have arrived in the United Kingdom after being transported on freezer trucks from the production facility in Belgium, British authorities confirmed to ABC News. The doses are on their way to distribution centers, which will then dole them out to be administered according to the priority list.
The U.K. Department of Health and Social Care announced Wednesday that a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech has been approved for use in the U.K.
Vaccinations for some high-priority people could begin next week. The majority of U.K. vaccinations will take place next year.
-ABC News' Angus Hines