Coronavirus updates: Fauci sets record straight on masks after debate
Fauci said his stance on masks were "taken out of context."
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 1 million people worldwide.
Over 33.8 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 7.2 million diagnosed cases and at least 206,905 deaths.
California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 819,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 770,000 cases and over 706,000 cases, respectively.
Nearly 190 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are being tracked by the World Health Organization, at least nine of which are in crucial phase three trials.
Latest headlines:
Kentucky on pace for record week of coronavirus cases
On Tuesday, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear reported 1,018 new cases -- the state's second highest single-day increase since March 6.
“It ought to be a wake-up call,” Beshear said. “What that means is we are on pace to have even more cases than last week where we set a record number of cases.”
Kentucky is one of 22 states currently considered in the "red zone" for cases according to the latest White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing obtained by ABC News.
The official rate of positive tests, a seven-day average, remains below 5 percent, at 4.24 percent. In addition to the second-highest number of daily cases, Kentucky reported 72,808 new tests on Tuesday, the second-highest amount announced in a single day since the start of the pandemic. A total of 1,446,385 tests have been administered since early March.
Indoor dining begins in New York City as some neighborhoods see uptick in cases
Indoor dining begins in New York City on Wednesday, and Mayor Bill de Blasio said the nine zip codes in Brooklyn and Queens seeing upticks in cases will be the focus of city health inspectors.
"We will be looking carefully to make sure every restaurant is following the rules," the mayor said. "If we see the kinds of violations that create problems -- like employees not wearing a mask or a violation of the 25% limit, or alcohol being consumed at a bar -- those are the kind of things that will lead to immediate summonses."
“We certainly don’t want to see restaurants shut down, but we need to be very rigorous everywhere in the city, particularly in those zip codes,” de Blasio said.
On Wednesday 354 new daily COVID-19 cases were reported in the city and 87 people were admitted to hospitals.
New York City’s daily positive test rate in the last 24 hours stands at .94%. The seven-day rolling average positivity rate is at 1.46%.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.