Coronavirus live updates: COVID-19 positivity rates rising in 37 US states, analysis shows

October 27, 2020October 27, 2020 WKXA

Ovidiu Dugulan/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 1.1 million people worldwide.

Over 43.5 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 8.7 million diagnosed cases and at least 225,735 deaths.

California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 910,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 898,000 cases and over 782,000 cases, respectively.

Nearly 200 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are being tracked by the World Health Organization, at least 10 of which are in crucial phase three studies. Of those 10 potential vaccines in late-stage trials, there are currently five that will be available in the United States if approved.

Here’s how the news is developing Tuesday. All times Eastern:

Oct 27, 7:28 am
Study stops using Eli Lilly’s antibody treatment for COVID-19 patients due to ‘lack of clinical benefit’

Researchers have stopped testing a combination of remedesivir with one of Eli Lilly and Company’s experimental antibody treatments in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, after an independent review of results found a “lack of clinical benefit.”

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is funding the clinical trial, said in a statement Monday that it plans to test other experimental drugs as COVID-19 treatments in the study.

Eli Lilly and Company said that all other studies of its monoclonal antibody drug, bamlanivimab, will continue, including one in recently diagnosed COVID-19 patients with mild to moderate cases and another in people at risk of infection.

“While there was insufficient evidence that bamlanivimab improved clinical outcomes when added to other treatments in hospitalized patients with COVID-19, we remain confident based on data from Lilly’s BLAZE-1 study that bamlanivimab monotherapy may prevent progression of disease for those earlier in the course of COVID-19,” Eli Lilly and Company said in a statement Monday.

Earlier this month, the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize emergency use of bamlanivimab in non-hospitalized individuals with mild to moderate cases of COVID-19.

Oct 27, 6:07 am
Russia’s daily death toll reaches all-time high

Russia registered 320 more deaths from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, setting a new national record, according to the country’s coronavirus response headquarters.

The country’s previous record of 317 deaths in a 24-hour reporting period was set less than a week ago.

An additional 16,550 new cases of COVID-19 were also confirmed in the past day, down from a peak of 17,347 the day prior, according to Russia’s coronavirus response headquarters.

Moscow remains the epicenter of the country’s outbreak and recent surge. More than 26% of the new cases — 4,312 — and over 19% of the new deaths — 61 — were reported in the capital.

The nationwide, cumulative total now stands at 1,547,774 cases with 26,589 deaths, according to Russia’s coronavirus response headquarters.

The Eastern European country of 145 million people has the fourth-highest tally of COVID-19 cases in the world, behind only the United States, India and Brazil, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Oct 27, 5:10 am
US reports more than 66,000 new cases

There were 66,784 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Monday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

The latest daily tally is nearly 6,000 more than the previous day but still less than the national record of 83,757 new cases set on Friday.

An additional 481 fatalities from COVID-19 were also registered nationwide Monday, almost half the previous day’s count and down from a peak of 2,666 new deaths in mid-April.

A total of 8,704,524 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 225,735 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 80,000 for the first time on Oct. 23.

Oct 27, 4:34 am
Analysis shows COVID-19 positivity rates rising in 37 US states

An ABC News analysis of COVID-19 trends across all 50 U.S. states as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and Guam found there were increases in the daily positivity rate of COVID-19 tests in 37 states.

The analysis also found increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations in 35 states plus Puerto Rico and Guam, as well as increases in daily COVID-19 death tolls in 27 states.

Meanwhile, case numbers are higher — a daily average of at least 15 new cases per 100,000 people over the past week — and staying high in 33 states plus Puerto Rico and Guam, and case numbers are lower — a daily average of under 15 new cases per 100,000 people over the past week — but are going up in nine states.

Six states hit a record number of current hospitalizations in a day, while 16 states saw a record number of current hospitalizations in a week. Twenty states plus Puerto Rico reported a record number of new cases in a week. Six states reached a record number of new deaths in a week.

The United States is rapidly approaching an average of 70,000 new cases a day, the highest it has been since the start of the pandemic. Just a week ago, the country was averaging 57,000 new cases a day. That average has doubled in the last six weeks. Friday and Saturday marked the two highest days on record for the country, with a combined 165,678 new cases over the 48-hour reporting period.

The month of October is now on track to become the second-highest month on record for COVID-19 cases in the United States. Nearly 1.4 million daily cases have been reported since Oct. 1, and nearly half a million of those cases have been reported in the last seven days alone.

Midwestern states continue to struggle, reaching record-high daily figures on Saturday. But the Midwest is not alone. Since Oct. 3, the seven-day average of new cases in the South have risen by 45%, and the West is now reporting daily case numbers not seen since mid-August.

Even the Northeast, which had consistently reported improving trends after COVID-19 struck in the spring, has seen a concerning resurgence of the virus. Rhode Island hit an all-time high of new cases last week, and the average rate of positivity has now surpassed 5% in Massachusetts.

The number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized nationwide continues to hover around 41,000. Just in the last month, current hospitalizations have increased by 40%.

In the Northeast, hospitalizations are nearing the 4,000 mark. The number of patients hospitalized in the Midwest is now the highest on record.

The trends were all analyzed from data collected and published by the COVID Tracking Project over the past two weeks, using the linear regression trend line of the seven-day moving average to examine whether a state’s key indicators were increasing, decreasing or remained flat.