Coronavirus updates: California reports over 49,000 new cases, 468 new deaths
More than 373,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 90 million people worldwide and killed over 1.9 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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UK poised to move to highest COVID-19 alert level
The United Kingdom is expected to announce tight lockdown restrictions Monday, following a recommendation from the nation's chief medical officers to move to the highest COVID-19 alert level -- alert level 5 -- across the country. The U.K. has been at alert level 4 since September.
"Cases are rising almost everywhere, in much of the country driven by the new more transmissible variant," the chief medical officers said in a statement Monday. "We are not confident that the NHS can handle a further sustained rise in cases and without further action there is a material risk of the NHS in several areas being overwhelmed over the next 21 days."
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce additional measure to control the virus during a televised address Monday evening.
-ABC News' Zoe Magee contributed to this report.
Entire NCAA Tournament to be held in Indiana
The entire 2021 NCAA men's championship basketball tournament will be held in Indiana, the NCAA announced Monday.
The NCAA is partnering with the local health department in Marion County to test players, coaching staff, administrators and officials for COVID-19. Teams will stay on dedicated hotel floors and meetings and dining halls with be socially distanced.
"The Marion County Health Department has approved medical protocols shared by the NCAA and will continue collaborating with the NCAA leading up to and during the championship," the NCAA said in a statement.
The majority of those contests will be held in Indianapolis.
The 2020 NCAA Tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABC News' Joshua Hoyos and Matthew Stone contributed to this report.
Record number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19
A record-breaking 125,544 people in the United States are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, with six states -- Alabama, California, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas -- reporting record hospitalizations on Jan. 3.
While daily COVID-19 figures remain skewed because of a holiday-related backlog, data from December shows a grim trend, according to an ABC News analysis of data collected by The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the U.S. outbreak. December was the worst month so far for infections, hospitalizations and deaths. In less than eight weeks, the U.S. jumped from 10 million cases to 20 million cases on Jan. 1.
Over the course of December, the U.S. reported 77,082 deaths from the virus, bringing the national death toll to 351,590, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S., which leads the world in COVID-19 fatalities, accounts for nearly 20% of the world's total death toll.
In different terms, 1 in every 940 Americans has died of COVID-19.
ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
Scotland to return to full lockdown
Scotland will re-enter a nationwide lockdown at midnight in an effort to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced the move Monday, telling Scottish Parliament that people across the mainland will be required to stay at home until at least the end of January. People must work from home where possible, group exercise will be banned, places of worship must shutter and schools will remain closed to most students.
The island areas will remain under Level 3 restrictions but will be closely monitored, Sturgeon said. All of Scotland has been under either Level 3 or 4 restrictions in recent weeks.
The situation will be reviewed on Jan. 18, Sturgeon said.
The new restrictions come as the country battles a rise in COVID-19 infections, with 15% of tests currently returning a positive result. Sturgeon told Scottish Parliament that she was "more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year."
"It is essential that we further limit interaction between different households to stem the spread and bring the situation back under control, while we vaccinate more people," the first minister said. "In short, we must return for a period to a situation much closer to the lockdown of last March."
Biden to get 2nd vaccine dose on Monday
President-elect Joe Biden will get his second vaccine dose in public on Monday “to continue to instill confidence in the vaccine’s safety and efficacy,” said incoming White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
This will be 21 days after Biden received the first dose, she said.
When Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris receives her second dose, it will also be in public, she said.
Psaki added, “The Biden-Harris transition team today started to vaccinate incoming members of the administration. Up to 35 individuals will be vaccinated.”
“These individuals are people who will be in close proximity to the President or Vice President, who are critical members of the National Security team or are Cabinet nominees in the line of succession to the presidency,” she said. “These vaccinations are being conducted now so that these individuals can complete their inoculation shortly after January 20. The vaccine being used for this purpose is coming from supplies previously allocated to the White House medical unit.”
ABC News’ John Verhovek and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.