Myriam Borzee/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 386,000 people worldwide.

Over 6.5 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding the scope of their nations’ outbreaks.

Since the first cases were detected in China in December, the United States has become the worst-affected country, with more than 1.8 million diagnosed cases and at least 107,175 deaths.

Here’s how the news is developing Thursday. All times Eastern:

6:03 a.m.: Some people may be delaying emergency care amid pandemic, CDC warns

Data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates some people may be delaying emergency care for serious health conditions during the coronavirus pandemic.

The total number of visits to hospital emergency departments across the country for reasons other than COVID-19 fell from a mean of 2.1 million visits per week between March 31 and April 27 of last year to 1.2 million between March 29 and April 25 of this year — a 42% decrease, according to the findings published Wednesday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The research found the “steepest decreases” in emergency department visits were among children aged 14 and younger, women and girls, and residents of the northeastern part of the country.

However, the report noted that the “proportion of infectious disease–related visits was four times higher during the early pandemic period.”

The CDC warned that fewer visits for critical conditions might result in complications or death.

3:49 a.m.: Autopsy shows George Floyd tested positive for COVID-19

George Floyd, whose death in Minnesota police custody has stirred widespread anger across the United States and abroad, tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to a full-length autopsy report released Wednesday night.

A postmortem nasal swab collected on May 26 was found to be “positive for 2019-nCoV RNA,” the report said, using another term for the type of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and is responsible for the global pandemic.

Floyd was known to be positive for the virus on April 3, and the type of viral testing performed for the autopsy, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), can show a positive result “for weeks after the onset and resolution of clinical disease,” according to Hennepin County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker, who conducted the autopsy.

“The autopsy result most likely reflects asymptomatic but persistent PCR positivity from previous infection,” Baker said in the 20-page report. In other words, Floyd was unlikely to have been contagious at the time of his death, in which the virus had no known role.

Earlier this week, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office released preliminary findings in a one-page “press release report,” which did not include the coronavirus test. The cause of death — “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual restraint and neck compression” — remains the same.

However, early findings from an independent autopsy ordered by Floyd’s family show his death was a “homicide caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain.”

Mass protests have taken place in every U.S. state as well as a number of cities overseas following the death of Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed Black man who died on May 25 in Minneapolis shortly after a white police officer was filmed kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes as three other officers stood by. The protesters are demanding justice for Floyd and decrying the overall treatment of Black Americans by police.

The Minneapolis Police Department has since fired all four officers, and the one seen pinning Floyd down, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The three other officers, Thomas Lane, J.A. Kueng and Tou Thao, each have been charged with second-degree aiding and abetting felony murder as well as second-degree aiding and abetting manslaughter, according to court documents.

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