Coronavirus updates: Los Angeles County to prohibit gatherings, close playgrounds

Cases are on the rise in Southern California.

A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 61 million people and killed over 1.4 million worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.


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Pennsylvania could run out of ICU beds by next week

Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine warned in a news release that the state's hospitals could run out of ICU beds within a week.

“This week’s data, in terms of hospitalization increase, an increase in the use of ventilators, case increase and percent positivity are worrisome,” she said in a statement.

The 14-day average of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 has increased from 1,111 on Nov. 1 to 2,700 on Nov. 23, according to the Pennsylvania Health Department.

As of Nov. 19, the state has seen a seven-day case increase of 36,133 cases, according to the Health Department.

Gov. Tom Wolf urged residents to follow the state's health guidelines, including wearing a mask, avoiding travel and gatherings and washing their hands.

"Another week of significant increases of COVID-19 across Pennsylvania is a call to action," he said in a statement.


Ohio breaks record for new daily cases

Ohio recorded a record-breaking 11,800 new coronavirus cases Monday as the state continued to see an upward trend.

The new daily case number was 300 more than the previous record set on Friday, according to data from the Ohio Health Department.

Gov. Mike DeWine told reporters during a news conference that the jump in numbers was due in part to two labs that weren't able to report their data for two days.

DeWine, however, noted that there are 4,358 patients in the state's hospitals that are being treated for the virus, which he said was a 59% increase from two weeks ago.

"We also currently have 1,079 patients who are in the ICU, which is again far higher than we have seen so far during this pandemic," the governor said.


Italy death toll surpasses 50,000

There were 22,930 new cases in Italy on Monday and 630 additional deaths, the country's Civil Protection Agency reported.

Italy now has 1,431,795 total COVID-19 cases and 50,453 deaths.

-ABC News' Christine Theodorou


England lockdown to end next week as planned

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday that a monthlong, nationwide lockdown in England will be lifted next week as scheduled.

Nonessential businesses and shops, including gyms and hair salons, will be allowed to reopen when the country returns to a regional tiered system of COVID-19 restrictions after Dec. 2.

"For the first time since this wretched virus took hold, we can see a route out of the pandemic," Johnson told members of Parliament, adding that breakthroughs in testing, treatments and vaccines should reduce the need for restrictions next year.

Unlike previous restrictions, the tiered measures will be a uniform set of rules and much tougher. The prime minister is expected to announced which parts of the county is in which tier on Thursday.

"I can't say that Christmas will be normal this year," Johnson said. "We all want some kind of Christmas; we need it, we certainly feel we deserve it. But what we don't want is to throw caution to the winds and allow the virus to flare up again, forcing us all back into lockdown."

ABC News' Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.


COVID-19 cases in US may be about 8 times higher than reported

The actual number of people infected with the novel coronavirus in the United States reached nearly 53 million at the end of September, according to a model developed by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The scientists estimated the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 in the U.S. population by taking the laboratory-confirmed case counts that were reported nationally and adjusting them for sources of under-detection based on testing practices in inpatient and outpatient settings. Preliminary estimates using the model found that 2.4 million hospitalizations, 44.8 million symptomatic illnesses and 52.9 million total infections may have occurred through Sept. 30.

"This indicates that approximately 84% of the U.S. population has not yet been infected and thus most of the country remains at risk, despite already high rates of hospitalization," the scientists wrote in a report published in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

There were 6.9 million laboratory-confirmed cases of of domestically-acquired infections that were detected and reported nationally through Sept. 30. Since then, the CDC's tally has increased to nearly 12.5 million. Based on the model's ratio, the true estimated total would now be more than 95 million.