Coronavirus latest: Ohio reports highest number of cases since July
The governor urged residents to be vigilant as Labor Day approaches.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 852,000 people worldwide.
Over 25.5 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 6 million diagnosed cases and at least 184,270 deaths.
California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 713,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 633,000 cases and over 631,000 cases respectively.
Nearly 170 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are being tracked by the World Health Organization, six of which are in crucial phase three trials.
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US case count tops 6 million
There were 33,888 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Monday, bringing the country’s cumulative total soaring past 6 million, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Monday’s tally is far below the country's record set on July 16, when 77,255 new cases were identified in a 24-hour reporting period.
An additional 595 coronavirus-related deaths were also recorded Monday. The latest daily death toll is well under the record 2,666 new fatalities that were reported on April 17.
A total of 6,031,013 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 183,598 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.
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 70,000 for the first time in mid-July.
However, the numbers of new COVID-19 cases and new deaths in the United States have both decreased by substantial amounts in week-over-week comparisons, according to an internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency obtained by ABC News last week.
Fauci warns governors to not let Labor Day gatherings ruin the nation's progress
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is warning state leaders to not let Labor Day gatherings ruin the nation’s progress in the fight against coronavirus.
"You remember following the 4th of July, following Memorial Day, when people understandably get out and congregate, we’ve had surges," Fauci said during Vice President Mike Pence’s weekly call with governors, according to audio obtained by ABC News.
"If we can get by the Labor Day weekend with the cases, the hospitalizations and the deaths going down in general throughout the country, we can get a running start as we go into the fall," Fauci said. "The one thing you don't want is to play whack-a-mole as you go into the fall, where you've gotten everything down and then one comes up."
"You can have a lot of fun without necessarily congregating in crowds with no masks, the situations where you can spread the infection," Fauci said. "We can do it … I have a great deal of faith in the American people that they will do that."
Both Pence and the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, asked governors to tell university presidents to isolate COVID-positive students rather than send them out to spread the virus at home or in an off-campus community.
"The majority of students -- even in online campuses -- are staying in their off-campus housing that they have rented," Birx said. "And so it's really important that these students are continuously tested, isolated and cared for, and don't return to their multi-generational households where they could dramatically increase spread, particularly over the Labor Day weekend."
ABC News' Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.