By Melissa Macaya, Meg Wagner, Helen Regan and Steve George, CNN
From CNN's Joe Sutton
The United States reported 25,766 new coronavirus cases and 704 deaths on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University.
That brings the nationwide confirmed total to 2,189,056 cases and at least 118,421 deaths.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
CNN’s interactive map is tracking the US cases:
More than 8.4 million cases of novel coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide, including at least 453,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
If you're just joining us, here are the latest developments.
UK coronavirus app: The British government is abandoning its attempt to develop a coronavirus tracing app from scratch and will instead build a new one based on a system created by Google and Apple. The about-face comes after the roll out of the UK app -- developed by the National Health Service and two outside firms -- was repeatedly delayed.
Cases surge in Indian capital: New Delhi is looking into increasing hospital beds and is ramping up testing as coronavirus cases in the city near 50,000. It comes as India reported 13,586 coronavirus cases nationwide in the past 24 hours, the biggest single-day jump in infections to date. Meanwhile, India lifted a ban on the export of hydroxychloroquine -- the anti-malaria drug that was being studied as a possible coronavirus therapy.
US warned of rising cases: Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, says that unless there are policy changes, the growing numbers of new Covid-19 cases in the US could get much bigger. Ten states have seen their highest daily number of cases this week and nearly two dozen states have seen spikes in cases compared to last week.
Beijing outbreak "under control": Chief epidemiologist at China's CDC Wu Zunyou declared the outbreak already "under control." But the current outbreak in Beijing is the worst resurgence of the coronavirus yet, and authorities are still trying to track down its source. The cluster has infected more than 180 people as of Friday.
Brazil nears 1 million cases: It comes after another daily spike on Thursday. The health ministry reported another 22,765 new cases, bringing its total number of cases to 978,142.
From CNN's Vedika Sud
India reported 13,586 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the biggest single-day jump in infections to date.
There were 336 deaths reported in the past 24 hours, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The total confirmed cases in the country now stands at 380,532, and 12,573 people have died, ministry figures show.
From CNN's Nectar Gan
Until last week, Beijing seemed to have all but moved on from the coronavirus pandemic.
For 55 days, the Chinese capital had not reported any locally transmitted infections and life had been returning to normal.
But that facade of normality was shattered when a fresh cluster of coronavirus cases emerged from a sprawling wholesale food market in the city, infecting more than 180 people as of Friday.
Within a matter of days, the metropolis of more than 20 million people was placed under a partial lockdown. Authorities reintroduced restrictive measures used earlier to fight the initial wave of infections, sealing off residential neighborhoods, closing schools and barring hundreds of thousands of people deemed at risk of contracting the virus from leaving the city.
The flare-up of infections in Beijing, the seat of Communist Party power and previously considered among the country's safest cities, is a stark reminder of how easily the virus can come back to haunt places where it was thought to have been tamed.
The current outbreak in Beijing is the worst resurgence of the coronavirus yet, and authorities are still trying to track down its source.
Previously, reports had linked the outbreak to seafood or meat, after traces of the virus were reportedly detected on a chopping board used by a seller of imported salmon at the market. However, there are now concerns that the virus had been quietly spreading for weeks before it was first detected.
Read more about the new outbreak and Beijing's race to contain it:
From CNN’s Shawn Deng in Beijing
China reported 28 new cases of Covid-19 aon Thursday, Beijing health officials announced today.
Twenty-five of the new cases are in Beijing, two in Hebei and one in Liaoning.
Beijing has reported 183 new cases in the last eight days since the Xinfadi market outbreak.
Around 356,000 people linked to the market have been tested as of Wednesday, according to Beijing health officials. The city's testing capacity stands at around 400,000 tests a day but will continue to increase, the official said.
On Thursday, China’s chief epidemiologist, Wu Zunyou, said the patients in most of the new cases were people who worked at seafood and meat stands in the market.
“Patients from the seafood market showed symptoms earlier than others. Preliminary assessment showed that low temperatures and high humidity may be favorable to the survival of the coronavirus,” Wu said.
From CNN's Esha Mitra in New Delhi
The Indian capital New Delhi has reported 49,979 cases of coronavirus, making it the second Indian city after Mumbai due to hit the 50,000 mark.
New Delhi Chief Minister Arwind Kejriwal said that more intensive care units (ICUs) may be needed to address the increasing number of cases.
"We may need more ICUs in the coming days," Kejriwal tweeted on Wednesday, adding that he is in discussion with doctors at government hospitals on how best to increase the number of ICUs.
Following a meeting with the union home minister on Thursday, the New Delhi government reduced the cost of testing for coronavirus and adopted a new "Rapid Antigen" methodology that has been approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research.
The method provides results in 15 minutes.
From CNN's Nectar Gan
The outbreak in Beijing, which has infected more than 100 people, will be the latest test of China's coronavirus containment strategy.
On Thursday, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at China's Center for Disease Control, struck a victorious tone, declaring that the outbreak in Beijing is already "under control."
Wu said that it is still likely that there will be newly confirmed cases linked to the market emerging in the coming days -- but it is not likely due to fresh transmission.
"Newly diagnosed cases reported every day does not equal new infections and the outbreak being under control doesn't mean there will be zero new cases tomorrow," Wu said.
"There will be cases reported tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. These reported cases are the detection process of the previous infections. Not new infections. The new infections are only sporadic," said Wu.
The chief epidemiologist said that it was not unexpected to see a new outbreak in Beijing, given the large number of new global cases.
"As long as there are risks of imported cases, imported infections and small-scale clusters caused by imported infections might occur anywhere in China. From this point of view, (the Beijing outbreak) is normal," he said.
From CNN Health’s Jen Christensen
Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, says he is worried that, unless there are policy changes, the growing numbers of new Covid-19 cases in the United States could get much bigger.
Ten states have seen their highest daily number of cases this week. Nearly two dozen states have seen spikes in cases compared to last week.
“I am worried that these are going to get worse and we may see more states joining that list,” Jha told CNN’s Don Lemon.
“Look, there are a few things we know that really do work, and I think unfortunately, in many parts of the country we’re not really implementing them, and that worries me.”
Jha said he is also worried for the people who will attend the rally President Donald Trump will hold in Tulsa on Saturday.
Cases in Oklahoma are up 110% from this time last week.
Holding an event indoors, not requiring masks, and having people close together for long periods of time could spread the infection to many.
“This is pretty much the least safe way to get people together and I’m really worried about what’s going to happen with this rally,” Jha said. “There are lots of ways of making it safer it doesn’t sound like the campaign is really going to work on doing that.”
Jha said it is possible that the country could see big spikes in the number of Covid-19 cases out of a rally like this, even if only a few people are infected.
“Things could get pretty bad, pretty quickly,” Jha said.
From CNN Health’s Jen Christensen
Convalescent plasma -- blood from recovered patients who had Covid-19 -- that has been transfused to hospitalized patients is considered safe, according to a new study.
The study published Thursday in Mayo Clinic Proceedings looked at results from 20,000 patients.
Researchers from the US Food and Drug Administration’s Expanded Access Program for Covid-19 looked at the results from patients who doctors thought might progress to a severe or life-threatening stage of the illness. They were transfused between April 3 and June 11.
Less than 1% of patients experienced serious adverse events. The number of people who died declined to 8.6% at the 7th day of the trial, compared to the 12% who died in a previous part of the safety study of 5,000 patients.
“Our efforts to understand convalescent plasma continue,” said author Dr. Michael Joyner on the Mayo Clinic website. Joyner is a principal investigator at Mayo Clinic. “We’re optimistic, but must remain objective as we assess increasing amounts of data.”
The authors caution that just because the treatment is safe, doesn’t mean that it is effective in treating Covid-19.
The study has limitations and more research will need to be done to determine if this works with this disease. There are several studies underway.
