Coronavirus updates: Global death toll surpasses 1 million
The United States leads the world in deaths, with a fifth of all fatalities.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 1 million people worldwide.
Over 33.2 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 7.1 million diagnosed cases and at least 204,778 deaths.
California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 809,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 758,000 cases and over 700,000 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.
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India's case count tops 6 million
India confirmed another 82,170 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, pushing its tally soaring past 6 million.
An additional 1,039 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded. The country's cumulative total now stands at 6,074,703 confirmed cases and 95,542 deaths, according to the latest data from the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
India is only the second country in the world to surpass 6 million total cases. The vast country of 1.3 billion people has the highest COVID-19 infection rate of anywhere in the world. It's expected to become the pandemic's worst-hit nation within the coming weeks, overtaking the United States, where more than 7.1 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
India also has the highest number of recovered COVID-19 patients in the world, with more than 5 million people who have survived the disease. The country's recovery rate stands at 82%, according to the health ministry.
'We're not in a good place,' Fauci warns
The United States is "not in a good place" as some areas report upticks in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious diseases expert.
"As we get into the fall and the winter, you really want the level of community spread to be as low as you possibility get it," Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, told ABC News in an interview Monday on "Good Morning America."
"There's certainly parts of the country that are doing well," he added. "But ... there are states that are starting to show uptick in cases and even some increases in hospitalizations in some states. And, I hope not but, we very well might start seeing increases in deaths."
"You don't want to be in a position like that as the weather starts getting cold," he warned. "So we really need to intensify the public health measures that we talk about all the time."
When asked about Florida's recent decision to reopen bars and restaurants at full capacity and suspend fines for not wearing masks, Fauci called it "very concerning."
"That is something that we really need to be careful about, because when you're dealing with community spread and you have the kind of congregate setting where people get together particularly without masks, you're really asking for trouble," he said. "Now's the time actually to double down a bit."
That doesn't mean another shutdown, he noted.
"We're not talking about shutting anything down. We're talking about common sense type of public health measures that we've been talking about all along," he said. "Obviously, if things really explode you'd have to consider that. But we want to do everything we possibly can to avoid an absolute shutdown."
As the global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic edges closer to 1 million, Fauci warned that the situation is "very serious."
"You got to take it very seriously," he said.