The number of coronavirus cases reached a half-million worldwide on Thursday, as deaths continued to climb.
At least 523,000 people have COVID-19 around the globe, with the death toll mounting past 23,600, according to a running count by Johns Hopkins University researchers.
The US is now just narrowly behind China and Italy at 80,021 cases, and has seen more than 1,000 deaths, 385 of them in New York State.
Most of those victims were in hard-hit New York City, where hospitals have been overwhelmed by a surge in patients.
Louisiana is poised to become the next hotspot, with cases there surging by more than 500, for a total of over 2,300, with 86 deaths, including a 17-year-old, the health department said.
Around the globe, the death toll rose to about 8,200 in Italy, 4,100 in Spain and 1,700 in France, including a 16-year-old.
So far, more than 120,000 people have recovered from the virus, according to the Johns Hopkins tally.
With Post Wires