U.S. passes 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases

There have now been more than one million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center says.

Johns Hopkins on Tuesday afternoon updated its tally of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States to more than one million. Worldwide, there have been more than three million confirmed cases of coronavirus. More than 56,000 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in the United States, and more than 213,000 deaths have been reported globally, according to the Johns Hopkins tally.

This news comes after a model from the University of Washington that's been used by the White House estimated there will be more than 74,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the United States by the beginning of August, up from the projection of 67,000 last week, CBS News reports. The Wall Street Journal notes the U.S. reached one million confirmed cases less than three weeks after reaching 500,000 cases.

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A number of states around the country have recently started taking steps to slowly begin reopening their economies after nonessential businesses closed during the pandemic, though experts stress the importance of ramping up testing. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently said the United States is conducting between 1.5 million and 2 million coronavirus tests a week but that "we probably should get up to twice that as we get into the next several weeks," CNN reports. He added, "I think we will." Fauci has also warned that reopening too quickly would backfire, as "if you jump the gun, and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you're going to set yourself back."