US Covid-19 cases top 36m with over 618,000 deaths

Healthcare workers place a stretcher inside an ambulance at Texas Children's Hospital as cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spike in Houston, Texas, US, on 8 July 2020Reuters

US Covid-19 cases topped 36 million on Tuesday, fuelled by a steep increase in infections due to the unchecked spread of the Delta variant.

As of 6:21 pm local time on Tuesday, US Covid-19 cases totalled 36,039,748, with 618,044 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally.

US cases currently account for almost 18 per cent of the nearly 204 million global cases, while the country’s Covid-19 deaths account for roughly 14 per cent of the more than 4.3 million virus-related fatalities worldwide, showed the tally, the Xinhua news agency reported.