Coronavirus cases top 10 million in United States. ‘Daily cases are skyrocketing’

Coronavirus has infected more than 10 million people in the United States, Johns Hopkins University reports.

There have been more than 50 million confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus worldwide, with more than 1.25 million deaths, according to the university. The United States leads the world in deaths with more than 237,000. Brazil follows at more than 162,000 deaths.

About 155 million people in the U.S. have been tested for COVID-19, Johns Hopkins University reported.

President-elect Joe Biden named a coronavirus task force Monday as part of his presidential transition, CNN reported.

Former surgeon general Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner David Kessler and Yale University’s Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith will serve as the co-chairs, according to the network.

“Daily cases are skyrocketing,” Biden said Friday, NPR reported. “I want everyone — everyone — to know on Day 1, we’re going to put our plan to control this virus into action.”

“We got hit very badly in the beginning,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NBC News reported. “We never went back down to a baseline that was a very low baseline.”

“There’s a global COVID-19 fatigue,” Fauci said. “People are just tired of being restricted. Not only from a convenience standpoint, but from an economic standpoint. People are losing their jobs. They’re not able to support their families.”

The coronavirus outbreak began in December in Wuhan, China, possibly after the virus passed to humans from bats and pangolins, an Asian scaly anteater, McClatchy News reported.

COVID-19 is a disease caused by a new type of coronavirus first seen in 2019, which comes from a family of viruses responsible for the common cold, SARS, MERS and other ailments.

The World Health Organization has declared coronavirus a global pandemic. In the United States, President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency.

This story was originally published November 9, 2020 at 1:39 PM with the headline "Coronavirus cases top 10 million in United States. ‘Daily cases are skyrocketing’."