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.
'We’re all on the same team,' Fauci says of Trump
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top medical expert on the coronavirus pandemic and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, is weighing in on comments President Donald Trump made during a recent interview with Fox News.
Speaking to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Monday, Trump said he "inherited" Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and that he disagrees with “a lot” of what he says.
"I think when you get statements like that, that doesn’t really reflect what goes on," Fauci told ABC News' Amy Robach in an interview Tuesday on "Good Morning America." "I think that’s kind of a distraction to pit me against the president. We’re all on the same team."
Fauci also attempted to clarify new information released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which showed 94% of those who died from COVID-19 as of last week had underlying health conditions and contributing causes.
"The point the CDC was trying to make was that a certain percentage of them had nothing else but just COVID. That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of COVID didn’t die of COVID-19. They did," he said. "So the numbers that you’ve been hearing, the 180,000 plus deaths, are real deaths from COVID-19."
Trump, however, retweeted a conspiracy theory that suggested only 9,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States -- the original tweet has since been removed by Twitter.
"Let there not be any confusion about that. It’s not 9,000 deaths from COVID-19; it’s 180,000 plus deaths," Fauci added.
When asked about the CDC’s new guidelines on COVID-19 testing, Fauci admitted, "That did create some confusion."
"The way that sentence was said, it gave the impression that they’re not concerned about community spread and that people who are asymptomatic should not be tested," he said. "There’s no doubt that there are asymptomatic infection and that asymptomatic people can transmit and that you can and should test asymptomatic people."
"What the guideline was trying to do was to try to make the point that not everyone who wants to be tested should be tested; only if you need to be tested," he continued. "Understandably, that was confusing. Hopefully, that’s been straightened out now."