Coronavirus deaths top 500K globally, more than 10M cases, according to Johns Hopkins

CDC expands list of high-risk conditions for COVID-19 complications

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made revisions to its list of underlying medical conditions that put people at a higher risk of severe complications from the novel coronavirus.

More than 500,000 people with COVID-19 have died across the world, according to the most recent data available from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

As of June 28, there were more than 10 million confirmed cases and over 5 million recoveries globally. In the United States alone, there were more than 2.5 million confirmed cases, 125,000 deaths and 679,000 recoveries, according to Johns Hopkins.

The milestone comes at a time when multiple countries have indicated progress in their efforts to quell the spread of a novel coronavirus, while other nations and states question their decision-making processes as COVID-19 cases continue to spike.

Brazil, for example, with more than 1.3 million cases, trails only the United States in its confirmed COVID-19 case tallies. Critics have slammed the Brazilian government’s downplaying and lack of action regarding the pandemic.

In the United States, Florida, one of the earliest U.S. states to reopen, has seen an exponential rise in its daily new confirmed case counts. Prior to June 1, there were just a handful of days in which new daily confirmed COVID-19 cases topped 1,000. Since that date, there have been no days when Florida’s new COVID-19 case numbers were below 1,000. On June 26 alone, it was reported that there were more than 8,900 new cases, prompting the state to ban alcohol consumption in bars in an apparent bid to dampen public socialization in close quarters.

For reference, Florida had more than 132,000 confirmed cases as of June 28. That’s more than all of the COVID-19 cases reported for countries like Canada, China, Colombia, Sweden and Egypt.

Texas reported more than 17,000 confirmed new cases over the past three days, with a record high of nearly 6,000 on Thursday.

While not every U.S. state is experiencing as drastic of a rise in COVID-19 cases, a recent national spike cases overall is troubling. The one-day number of new confirmed cases in the U.S. hit 40,000 on June 26, a new record.

Due to a lack of federal COVID-19 lockdown measures, states and cities in the U.S. have had to implement their own preventative policies and guidance. Leaders from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are implementing 14-day quarantines for travelers from states with high COVID-19 cases.

Similar preventative measures can be seen across the world. The European Union may bar American travelers from visiting its member countries due to the high COVID-19 infection rates in the U.S.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading health expert on the COVID-19 pandemic, spoke Friday during the first White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing in nearly two months, reminding Americans to consider how their actions have larger impacts on the health of individuals globally.

“The chances are, if you get infected, you will infect someone else,” Fauci said. “If we want to end this, we’ve got to realize we are part of the process.”

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While the increase in reported cases is believed to reflect, in part, greatly expanded testing, experts say there is ample evidence the virus is making a comeback, including rising deaths and hospitalizations in parts of the country and higher percentages of tests coming back positive for the virus.

The country with the most confirmed COVID-19 deaths is the United States, followed by Brazil (57,000+) and the United Kingdom (43,000+).

On June 25, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a revised list of who is at increased risk of becoming severely ill due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“CDC has removed the specific age threshold from the older adult classification. CDC now warns that among adults, risk increases steadily as you age, and it’s not just those over the age of 65 who are at increased risk for severe illness,” the agency noted.
The CDC also highlighted additional preexisting health conditions that could increase a person’s risk of becoming severely ill due to COVID-19 infection. These include chronic kidney disease, certain obesity levels, type 2 diabetes, and serious heart conditions.

The health agency is still recommending that individuals wash their hands frequently, wear a mask, practice social distancing, cover coughs and sneezes, clean and disinfect surfaces regularly, and monitor their own symptoms to help prevent spread of the novel coronavirus.