WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States added 1,262 more deaths to its COVID-19 toll in the 24 hours ending at 8:30 pm Wednesday (0030 GMT), according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
The world’s largest economy also added 53,158 new cases of the virus, the Baltimore-based institution’s tracker showed.
The US has now recorded 4,818,328 total cases, which have resulted in 157,930 deaths, making it by far the worst-hit country in the world.
President Donald Trump nonetheless remained optimistic Wednesday, saying “This thing’s going away. It will go away like things go away and my view is that schools should be open.”
The pandemic has seen a resurgence in the US since June in many states, particularly in the south and west.
One of them, Florida, on Wednesday surpassed half a million cases since the start of the crisis.
In Arizona, another badly hit state, more than 500 inmates in a Tucson jail — more than half the facility’s population — tested positive for coronavirus, local prison officials said.
© Agence France-Presse