(abcnews) – A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has claimed the lives of more than 46,800 people around the world, including at least 4,757 people in the United States.
Globally, more than 932,000 people have been diagnosed with the new respiratory virus, which causes an illness known officially as COVID-19. Over 193,000 of those patients have recovered, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. has by far the highest national tally in the world with over 213,000 confirmed cases.
During the daily White House coronavirus briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci gave some predictions about when social distancing guidelines could be scaled back.
Fauci cited the curve shown at Tuesday’s briefing and said people could go back to normal when there are essentially no cases or deaths.
“The one thing we hopefully would have in place, and I believe we will have in place, is a much more robust system to identify someone who was infected,” he said. “If you have a really good program of containment that prevents you from ever having to get into mitigation.”
Adam Schlesinger, the co-founder of the band Fountains of Wayne, as well as a celebrated songwriter for films and theater, has died of coronavirus, his attorney confirmed to ABC News.
The 52-year-old bass player and singer founded Fountains of Wayne with Chris Collingwood in the mid-’90s and had a massive radio hit with “Stacy’s Mom” in May 2003.
Schlesinger was also nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for writing the title track for the Tom Hanks film “That Thing You Do” in 1997.
He won three Emmys and a Grammy in his music career.
Grand Canyon closes to visitors
One of the country’s most recognizable geographic landscapes has closed due to coronavirus.
Grand Canyon National Park will be closed to all visitors on the recommendation of the Health and Human Services director and chief health officer of Coconino County, Arizona, according to a press release. The park is closed indefinitely.
“The Department of the Interior and the National Park Service will continue to follow the guidance of state and local health officials in making determinations about our operations,” Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said in a statement. “As soon as we received the letter from the Health and Human Services Director and Chief Health Officer for Coconino County recommending the closure of Grand Canyon National Park, we closed the park.”
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