Coronavirus updates: US will soon have 'half a million' deaths, incoming CDC chief says
The U.S. is forecast to have almost 500,000 COVID-19 deaths by mid-February.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 94.2 million people worldwide and killed over 2 million of them, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
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Texas is 1st US state to administer 1 million vaccines
Texas, home to about 29 million people, has become the first U.S. state to administer more than 1 million vaccine doses, Gov. Greg Abbott said.
Texas has 2,040,751 confirmed cases and at least 31,277 fatalities, according to real-time data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
Texas’ Harris County, home to Houston, ranks No. 5 in the country for the highest number of confirmed cases, behind Los Angeles County, California; Cook County, Illinois; Marciopa County, Arizona; and Miami-Dade County, Florida.
ABC News’ Gina Sunseri contributed to this report.
Brazil variant prompts UK to ban arrivals from some South and Central American countries
The United Kingdom will ban arrivals from several South and Central American countries beginning Friday, following evidence of a new variant of the novel coronavirus from Brazil, British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced Thursday.
The U.K. government will ban arrivals from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela, according to Shapps.
Travel from Portugal to the U.K. will also be suspended given its strong travel links with Brazil, Shapps said.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.
About 1 in 3 has been infected in LA County
About one in every three people in Los Angeles County has been infected with COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, Los Angeles County Health Department officials said Wednesday.
Los Angeles County is close to becoming the county to reach 1 million cases. As of Thursday morning, 958,497 people in the county had been infected.
ABC News’ Bonnie Mclean contributed to this report.
Arizona leading US in cases per capita
The U.S. is averaging over 242,000 new cases per day, according to ABC News’ analysis of COVID Tracking Project data.
Arizona is leading the country in cases per capita.
In Virginia, Georgia and Florida, daily case numbers dwarf their respective summer peaks.
In New York, the average number of daily cases is 65% higher than during the spring surge.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
US sees deadliest day yet from COVID-19
There were a record 4,327 new deaths from COVID-19 registered in the United States on Tuesday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Tuesday's tally overtakes the country's previous all-time high of 4,194 fatalities from the disease, which were registered on Jan. 7, Johns Hopkins data shows.
An additional 215,805 new cases of COVID-19 were also confirmed nationwide on Tuesday, down from a peak of 302,506 newly confirmed infections on Jan. 2. It's the eighth consecutive day that the country has reported more than 200,000 new cases, according to Johns Hopkins data.
COVID-19 data may be skewed due to possible lags in reporting over the holidays followed by a potentially very large backlog.
A total of 22,846,808 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 380,796 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins data. 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 over the summer.
The numbers lingered around 40,000 to 50,000 from mid-August through early October before surging again to record levels, crossing 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4, then reaching 200,000 on Nov. 27 before topping 300,000 on Jan. 2.