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The death toll from coronavirus in the US has reached the grim milestone of 150,000, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The bleak figure is by far the highest in the world. Brazil has the second highest toll with over 88,000 deaths, followed by the UK at 46,000.
It was reached amid signs that the nation’s outbreak is beginning to stabilise in the Sun Belt but heating up in the Mid-west, fuelled largely by young adults who are visiting bars, restaurants and gyms again.
The surge has been accompanied by a burgeoning outbreak of misinformation and conspiracy theories about supposed cures and the effectiveness of masks.
Johns Hopkins put the nation’s confirmed infections at nearly 4.4 million, also the highest in the world.
The real numbers in the US and around the globe are believed to be higher because of limits on testing and the many mild cases that have gone undetected or unreported.
Hard-hit Florida reported 216 deaths, breaking the single-day record it set a day earlier.
And South Carolina’s death toll passed 1,500 this week, more than doubling over the past month.