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US COVID-19 infections near hit 2.5 million

The US has recorded its largest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began.
The US has recorded its largest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began. Credit: AP

The number of coronavirus cases has by 45,330 in the United States, its largest single-day spike since the pandemic began, taking the number of confirmed infections in the worst-hit country to 2.46 million.

According to The Johns Hopkins University tally, 574 deaths were recorded during the last 24 hours from Thursday evening, taking the overall toll to nearly 125,000.

The new record for daily positive cases piled up amid a fresh outbreak of the pandemic in the states like Florida, Texas, California, and Arizona, which account for nearly half of the new infections across the country.

New York, however, remains the worst-hit state in the US with 391,220 confirmed cases and 31,342 deaths, a figure just below Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

In New York City alone, 22,421 people have died of the virus.

New York is followed by neighbouring New Jersey with 14,914 deaths, Massachusetts with 8,012, and Illinois with 6,847 fatalities.

Other states with a large number of deaths include Pennsylvania (6,579), Michigan (6,134), California (5,816), and Connecticut (4,307).

In terms of infections, California is the second worst-affected state with 202,072 confirmed cases.

The overall death toll of 124,978 has already exceeded the lowest level of the initial projection by the White House, which had estimated that there will be between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths due to the pandemic in the US.

In the video below, Healthcare workers in Melbourne blitzing city hotspots

Hundreds of health care workers in Melbourne are this morning blitzing the city's coronavirus hotspots - aiming to test 10-thousand people a day - for the next 10 days.

President Donald Trump lowered those estimates and was confident that the final figure would rather be between 50,000 and 60,000 deaths, although he later revised the estimates to 110,000 deaths.

The Institute of Health Metrics and Assessments (IHME) of the University of Washington, whose prediction models are used by the White House, has estimated that there will be 180,000 fatalities in the US by October.

Meanwhile, Mexico on Friday reported 5,441 new cases, 719 more fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 208,392 cases and 25,779 deaths.

However, the government has said the actual number of infections could be more than the known cases.