US COVID-19 cases surpass 25m: Johns Hopkins University

The total number of COVID-19 cases in the US topped 25 million on Sunday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

US COVID-19 case count rose to 25,003,695, with a total of 417,538 deaths, as of 10:22am local time (1522 GMT), according to the CSSE tally.

California reported the largest number of cases among the states, standing at 3,147,735. Texas confirmed 2,243,009 cases, followed by Florida with 1,639,914 cases, New York with 1,323,312 cases, and Illinois with more than 1 million cases, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Other states with over 600,000 cases include Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, Tennessee, New Jersey and Indiana, the CSSE data showed.

The US remains the nation worst hit by the pandemic, with the world’s most cases and deaths, making up more than 25 per cent of the global caseload and nearly 20 per cent of the global deaths.

US COVID-19 cases reached 10 million on November 9, 2020, and the number doubled on January 1, 2021. Since the beginning of 2021, US caseload has increased by 5 million in just 23 days.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 195 cases caused by variants from more than 20 states as of Friday. The agency warned the cases identified do not represent the total number of cases associated with the variants that may be circulating in the US.

A national ensemble forecast updated Wednesday by the CDC predicted a total of 4,65,000 to 5,08,000 coronavirus deaths in the US by 13 February.