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THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS
U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Top 140,000 As World Sets Daily Record In New Cases
July 18, 20209:21 PM ET
Matthew S. Schwartz 2018 square
MATTHEW S. SCHWARTZ
A street artist spray-paints a protective face mask over an old mural featuring a Venezuelan Indigenous man in Caracas, Venezuela, on Saturday. Globally, new daily cases hit an all-time high on Saturday, the World Health Organization reports.
Matias Delacroix/AP
Updated at 4:30 a.m. ET Sunday
Over a 24-hour period, the world saw nearly 260,000 new coronavirus cases — a new record. Deaths were also on the rise, with 7,360 new fatalities reported Saturday in the highest one-day increase since May.
The World Health Organization announced the numbers on Saturday. The United States, Brazil, India and South Africa accounted for more than 165,000 of the cases. The WHO said it included more than 11,000 new cases from Kyrgyzstan on Saturday because of a change in reporting criteria.
Globally, nearly 600,000 people have been killed by the virus, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Deaths in the U.S. surpassed 140,000, accounting for almost a quarter of the world's COVID-19 fatalities.
On the testing front, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave emergency approval on Saturday to Quest Diagnostics to use its test for active coronavirus infections with "pooled" samples. Specimens from up to four people can be tested together; if the results come back negative, health officials will know that none of those individuals tested has the virus. A positive result would be followed up by individual testing of the samples.
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