Washington: The US registered more than 3,000 coronavirus fatalities in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day spike since April, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
On Wednesday, there were a total of 3,071 fatalities, which increased the country's overall death toll to 289,283, Xinhua news agency reported citing figures issued by the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE).
The overall caseload as of Thursday morning stood at 5,379,574, according to the CSSE.
The two tallies account for the world's highest, making the US the hardest-hit country by the pandemic.
On Tuesday, a panel meeting of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decided that healthcare personnel and residents of long-term care facilities will be the first groups to receive Covid-19 vaccines across the country.
More than 240,000 health care workers have been infected and 858 have died so far due to the disease, according to the CDC.
The overall number of global coronavirus cases has topped 68.8 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 1.56 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Thursday, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 68,822,212 and 1,567,706, respectively.
The US is the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 15,379,574 and 289,283, respectively, according to the CSSE.
India comes in second place in terms of cases at 9,735,850, while the country's death toll soared to 141,360.
The other countries with more than a million confirmed cases are Brazil (6,728,452), Russia (2,518,551), France (2,377,913), the UK (1,771,544), Italy (1,770,149), Spain (1,712,101), Argentina (1,475,222), Colombia (1,392,133), Germany (1,242,253), Mexico (1,193,255), Poland (1,088,346) and Iran (1,072,620), the CSSE figures showed.
Brazil currently accounts for the second highest number of fatalities at 178,995.
The countries with a death toll above 20,000 are Mexico (110,874), the UK (62,663), Italy (61,739), France (56,752), Iran (51,212), Spain (47,019), Russia (44,220), Argentina (40,222), Colombia (38,308), Peru (36,401), South Africa (22,574), Poland (21,160) and Germany (20,251).
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