Coronavirus updates: Barron Trump also tested positive for COVID, Melania says
Melania Trump said she and her son have now tested negative.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 1 million people worldwide.
Over 38.4 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 7.9 million diagnosed cases and at least 216,639 deaths.
California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 865,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 830,000 cases and over 741,000 cases, respectively.
More than 190 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are being tracked by the World Health Organization, at least 10 of which are in crucial phase three studies. Of those 10 potential vaccines in late-stage trials, there are currently five that will be available in the United States if approved.
Latest headlines:
'Herd immunity' is not the answer for solving the pandemic, officials say
Promoting the concept of "herd immunity" or "community immunity," a form of indirect protection from infectious disease that occurs when a certain percentage of a population has become immune, is "inappropriate, irresponsible and ill-informed," Thomas M. File Jr., president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, announced in a statement Wednesday.
While the concept is the goal of vaccination campaigns, it "should never come at the cost of the planned exposure and infection of millions of additional people," File said.
ABC News' Eric Strauss contributed to this report.
Russia prepares to test 2nd COVID-19 vaccine on 40,000 volunteers
Russia has registered a second COVID-19 vaccine and is preparing to test it on 40,000 volunteers, according to Russian officials.
The vaccine, called "EpiVakKorona," was produced by the 'Vector' State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Novosibirsk, a top state lab that since Soviet times has also been a key biological warfare center.
Unlike the first vaccine, Sputnik V, the new vaccine is not based on a modified adenovirus but instead is a "peptide" type vaccine that uses artificially synthesized fragments of the coronavirus itself to produce an immune response. It is administered in two doses, 21 days apart, according to Russian news agency TASS.
Caution must be used when giving it to patients suffering from chronic kidney and liver illnesses, as well as epilepsy and heart illnesses, TASS reported.
So far the vaccine has been tested on about 100 people, but it has not yet passed key clinical trials. The vaccine will now undergo, in effect, a phase 3 trial.
Sputnik V could be widely distributed in Russia by late October or early November, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev announced on Monday, according to TASS.
A third Russian vaccine is also on the way -- produced by the M.P. Chumakov Federal Scientific Center for Research and Development of Immuno-biological Drugs, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday. A phase 3 trial for that vaccine will begin Monday.
ABC News’ Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.
Funding to be withheld for New York schools in 'red zones'
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will withhold funding from schools in "red zones" that remain open –- both public and private –- until matters are resolve to the states liking, Cuomo announced during a conference call Wednesday.
Just over 1,200 people tested positive and seven people died in the state on Tuesday, Cuomo said. The test positivity rate in the "red zone" areas is 6.2%, while the statewide positivity rate excluding Red Zones is .95%.
ABC News’ J. Gabriel Ware contributed to this report.
Trump seeking emergency approval for Regeneron
President Donald Trump is working to get emergency approval for Regeneron, the antibody treatment that he himself received after contracting COVID-19.
The treatment made him "feel very good very fast," he told reporters from the Rose Garden of the White House on Wednesday morning.
"They call it a therapeutic, but I don't think it was therapeutic," Trump said. "I think it was a cure. For me, it was something that was very good. Who knows, maybe it would have happened anyway, maybe I would have recovered beautifully anyway. All I know is once I had Regeneron it worked out very well."
Analysis shows cases rising in 35 US states plus DC
An ABC News analysis of COVID-19 trends across all 50 U.S. states as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico found there were increases in newly confirmed cases over the past two weeks in 35 states as well as the nation's capital.
The analysis also found increases in the daily positivity rate of COVID-19 tests in 24 states plus D.C., increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations in 36 states and increases in daily COVID-19 death tolls in 11 states plus Puerto Rico.
The seven-day average of new cases in the United States has now surpassed 51,000, the highest it has been in nearly two months.
Six states -- Iowa, Montana, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin and West Virginia -- hit a record number of current COVID-19 hospitalizations in a day. One state -- Wisconsin -- reported its highest single-day increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases and also hit a peak of new deaths from the disease.
The trends were all analyzed from data collected and published by the COVID Tracking Project over the past two weeks, using the linear regression trend line of the seven-day moving average to examine whether a state's key indicators were increasing, decreasing or remained flat.
ABC News' Benjamin Bell, Brian Hartman, Soorin Kim and Arielle Mitropolous contributed to this report.