WASHINGTON (Agencies): The United States on Wednesday surpassed 40-0,000 novel coronavirus cases, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The pandemic has now claimed the lives of at least 12,936 people in the United States, which leads the world in the number of confirmed infections with 401,116, by the Baltimore-based school’s count.
The 300,000-case milestone was passed on Saturday.
In the state of New York alone, a record of 779 coronavirus deaths have been registered in the last 24 hours, the highest daily increase to date, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo.
The U.S. has the third highest number of deaths behind Italy and Spain, with nearly 13,000. On Tuesday, the highest coronavirus death toll in a single day was recorded with more than 1,850 virus-related fatalities. That’s a record for any country in a single day since the outbreak started.
But officials in the U.S. have seen some hope in new data suggesting that social distancing policies are working.
