The extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been brought to a halt in London after it was revealed that a lawyer representing the U.S. government may have been exposed to COVID-19 and was being tested.

Judge Vanessa Baraitser agreed to a request from Assange's defense team to adjourn the hearing until the attorney in question, who hasn't been identified, had received the test results.

"Last night, I was informed that one of the barristers in the case may have been exposed to the virus," Baraitser said at London's Old Bailey court on Thursday. "I am told the testing process will be known at some time tomorrow. Whilst the situation is uncertain the hearing should be adjourned until the
outcome is known."

The judge asked both parties for submissions on what to do next if the test comes back positive.

Assange, 49, is accused of conspiring to hack into U.S. government computers and violating an espionage law for releasing documents through WikiLeaks in 2010-2011. If convicted, he faces a sentence of up to 175 years in prison.

The Australian native was arrested in April 2019 at Ecuador's embassy in London, where had been holed up for almost seven years to avoid extradition.

Nearly 70% of inmates at a jail in central Virginia have tested positive for COVID-19 so far.

The Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover, some 20 miles north of Richmond, announced in a press release Wednesday that 124 of 178 inmates who have been tested for COVID-19 have received positive results. Moreover, 20 of 129 staff members who were tested also had positive results.

The jail has a total population of 380 inmates, who will now all be tested for COVID-19, according to a report by Richmond ABC affiliate WRIC.

The jail said the vast majority of those infected were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms. To date, there have been no hospitalizations or deaths.

"Immediately upon receiving offender results on Monday afternoon, affected individuals were identified and isolated from the general population," the Pamunkey Regional Jail said in the statement. "In an abundance of caution, the jail facility remains on lockdown, pending additional offender testing in collaboration with health department officials."

The jail said it was informed of the first pair of positive COVID-19 cases among its staff on Aug. 20 -- two employees who were immediately instructed to self-isolate. The third positive case was a jail contractor on Aug. 28, followed by a fourth employee on Aug. 31. Each case was individually reported to the local health department.

The first inmate to test positive for COVID-19 was on Sept. 3, after being isolated with cold-like symptoms within the facility for over a week. The local health department then arranged for all jail staff to be tested and performed testing among inmates "in areas where deemed necessary," according to jail officials.

"All affected employees were placed on emergency paid leave, and all offenders continue to be appropriately treated by medical staff, who provide 24/7 on-site patient care," the jail said.

The French government will continue paying up to 84% of salaries for furloughed workers "until next summer" due to prolonged economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, labor minister Elisabeth Borne announced Thursday on France's BFM television.

France has already spent tens of billions of euros on the temporary unemployment scheme since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, in an effort to save jobs. Last week, the government unveiled a 100 billion euro (approximately $118 billion) stimulus plan to help revive its hard-hit economy.

France, along with other European nations, has seen a rise in COVID-19 infections in recent weeks, as people returned to work and school.

France's national public health agency reported 8,577 new cases on Wednesday, the country's second-highest daily increase in COVID-19 infections so far, bringing its cumulative total to 344,101 cases with 30,794 deaths.

ABC News' Ibtissem Guenfoud contributed to this report.

Israel confirmed 3,904 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, its highest day-to-day increase yet.

There were 43,500 COVID-tests performed across the Middle Eastern country on Wednesday, with a positivity rate of 9%. Overall, more than 142,000 people have been diagnosed with the disease and at least 1,054 have died, according to the latest data from the Israeli Ministry of Health.

Since Tuesday, some 40 cities and towns across Israel have remained under a nightly curfew as part of efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

ABC News' Bruno Nota contributed to this report.

FDA Chief Stephen Hahn reiterated on Thursday that any FDA decision on a COVID-19 vaccine will be based on the science and data from clinical trials.

Hahn said the career experts in FDA's Center for Biologics Research make decisions on whether to recommend vaccines for approval and he has no plan to contradict them.

"I can tell you throughout this pandemic, throughout my tenure as commissioner, I have not reversed a decision by the career scientists on medical products and I have no intention of doing that now," he said, adding, "We will independently call the balls and strikes."

He responded to concerns the FDA would speed up or slow down vaccine authorizations to impact the election.

"[W]e find ourselves in the position that we're accused of either going too fast or too slow or doing too little or too much. And I suppose, where we land up is if we're hearing criticism from both sides, we're probably in the right place," Hahn said. "At the end of the day, for us, it's about the risk benefit calculus, particularly during a pandemic like COVID-19, and we do need to call the balls and strikes on medical products and we do need to use the available data."