Russia confirmed a record 25,487 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, along with an all-time high of 524 new deaths from the disease.

The cumulative total now stands at 2,187,990 confirmed cases, including 38,062 deaths, according to the country's coronavirus response headquarters.

The Eastern European nation of 145 million people has the fifth-highest tally of COVID-19 cases in the world, behind only the United States, India, Brazil and France, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Despite the growing number of infections and deaths, Russian authorities have repeatedly said they have no plans to impose another nationwide lockdown.

However, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin announced Thursday that he will extend the local COVID-19 restrictions in the capital city to Jan. 15. Those restrictions, which were set to expire Sunday, include a stay-at-home recommendation for residents over the age of 65 and an order for employers to keep at least 30% of their staff working from home.

Sobyanin said additional measures are not necessary at this point. Although the pace of the COVID-19 infection rate in Moscow appears to be gradually evening out, the mayor said it's still too early to say its on the decline.

"The health care system is still seriously overstretched," Sobyanin wrote on his blog Thursday.

ABC News' Alina Lobzina contributed to this report.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now projects that the country will have recorded up to 321,000 COVID-19 deaths before the end of the year.

The CDC on Wednesday published the latest national ensemble forecast, which predicts that the number of newly reported COVID-19 deaths in the United States will likely increase over the next four weeks, with 10,600 to 21,400 new deaths likely to be reported in the week ending Dec. 19. A total of 294,000 to 321,000 deaths from COVID-19 are projected to be reported nationwide by this date.

Last week's national ensemble forecast predicted there would be a total of 276,000 to 298,000 COVID-19 deaths reported nationwide by Dec. 12.

The ensemble forecasts are based on a combination of the independently developed forecasts that the CDC receives from various modeling groups.

There were 181,490 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States on Wednesday, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

It's the 23rd day in a row that the country has reported over 100,000 newly diagnosed infections. Wednesday's count is down from a peak of 196,004 new cases on Nov. 20.

An additional 2,297 fatalities from COVID-19 were also registered nationwide on Wednesday, the country's highest single-day death toll from the disease since May 6 and just under the all-time high of 2,609 new deaths on April 15.

A total of 12,778,254 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 262,283 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

Much of the country was under lockdown by the end of March as the first wave of pandemic hit. By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country's cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up and crossing 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4.

John Barsa, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, tested positive for the coronavirus Wednesday.

"The Acting Deputy Administrator has been isolating since he began exhibiting symptoms late Monday, Nov. 23, and will continue to until a retest is conclusive," spokesperson Pooja Jhunjhunwala said in a statement.

Barsa is acting deputy administrator and served as acting administrator for a term under the Vacancies Act, before President Donald Trump fired the deputy administrator to keep Barsa as the highest ranking official at the top U.S. aid agency.

ABC News' Connor Finnegan contributed to this report

A COVID-19 patient whose lungs had been severely damaged by the virus has made a miraculous recovery after undergoing a double lung transplant at a Texas hospital.

Paul Rodriguez, 52, of San Antonio, had no pre-existing conditions when he contracted the novel coronavirus and fell ill with pneumonia in July. Rodriguez was hospitalized at an area hospital in his hometown and required intubation as well as the use of a ventilator. Then in mid-September, Rodriguez was transferred to Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center in Houston for evaluation, "as it became clear that a lung transplant was his only chance of survival," according to a press release from the hospital, which said the patient had "irreversible lung damage."

Rodriguez was approved for a transplant and, within a week of listing, he received a brand-new set of lungs on Oct. 15. After being successfully weaned off the ventilator and oxygen support, Rodriguez underwent rehabilitation at Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center and was discharged on Nov. 24. He is expected to continue the rehabilitation program as part of his recovery, according to the press release.

"Rodriguez is the first double lung transplant the hospital has performed on a coronavirus patient since the pandemic began," Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center said in a statement. "To date, only a handful of transplant centers in the U.S. have performed lung transplants on patients due to irreversible lung damage caused by the virus."