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.
Latest headlines:
WHO experts investigating virus origins arrive in Wuhan
An international team of 13 scientists researching the origins of COVID-19 arrived Thursday in Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus was first discovered, according to the World Health Organization.
"The experts will begin their work immediately during the 2 weeks quarantine protocol for international travelers," the WHO wrote on Twitter.
All team members had to be tested for COVID-19 again in Singapore before flying to China. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were all negative, but two IgM antibody tests returned positive results. Those two scientists remain in Singapore as they are retested, according to the WHO.
965,000 US workers filed jobless claims last week
A total of 965,000 workers in the United States filed jobless claims last week, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday, an increase of 181,000 from the prior week.
The Labor Department also said that more than 18 million people were still receiving some form of unemployment benefits through all government programs for the week ending Dec. 26. For the comparable week in 2019, that figure was just above 2 million.
The weekly unemployment tally has fallen since peaking at 6.9 million in March but still remains elevated by historical standards.
The pre-pandemic record for weekly unemployment filings was 695,000 in 1982.
That record has been broken every week since late March.
As of last month, the unemployment rate in the U.S. was 6.7%. It was 3.5% last February.
-ABC News’ Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report
US could see up to 477,000 COVID-19 deaths by Feb. 6
This week’s national ensemble forecast released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that 16,200 to 29,600 more Americans will likely die from COVID-19 in the week ending Feb. 2.
The national ensemble estimates a total of 440,000 to 477,000 deaths from the disease will be reported nationwide by that date.
Nearly all US metro areas 'in full resurgence': White House task force
Nearly all U.S. metro areas with over 500,000 people are in "full resurgence" of COVID-19, the White House coronavirus task force said in its latest report, obtained by ABC News Wednesday.
In the report, dated Jan. 10, the task force said the fall/winter surge has had nearly twice the rate of rise in COVID-19 cases as the spring and summer surges.
Several states, including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico and South Carolina, are also in "full pandemic resurgence," the report stated.
Only "aggressive mitigation" can "match a more aggressive virus," and Americans must take more precautions, "moving beyond what worked in the summer to more layered mitigation," the report stated.
The task force recommended uniform mask implementation and "strict physical distancing." Without that, "epidemics could quickly worsen as more transmissible variants spread and become predominant," it warned.
ABC News' Josh Margolin and Brian Hartman contributed to this report.
World will not achieve 'any levels' of herd immunity in 2021, WHO warns
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the World Health Organization, urged people to keep practicing public health measures like mask wearing and social distancing while COVID-19 vaccine production scales up enough to reach billions of people worldwide.
"So, we have to be here a little bit patient, the vaccines are going to come, they're going to go to all countries but meanwhile we mustn't forget there are measures that work," Swaminathan said.
People around the world will need to keep practicing fundamental public health measures at least "for the rest of this year at least," according to Swaminathan.
"Even as vaccines start protecting the most vulnerable, we're not going to achieve any levels of population immunity, or herd immunity in 2021," she added.
-ABC News' Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.