US coronavirus death toll surpasses 40,000

The death toll from coronavirus in the U.S. surpassed 40,000 on Sunday.

A nationwide tally conducted by Johns Hopkins University indicated that the total number of dead in the U.S. sat at 40,461 as of Sunday evening, while more than 755,000 cases of the virus have been confirmed across the country. So far, over 67,100 recoveries have been recorded in the U.S. 

Globally, the virus has infected more than 2.3 million people, as governments in many countries including the U.S. have ordered some non-essential businesses to close and residents to stay at home unless absolutely necessary.

Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), warned this week during an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham that the coronavirus was “extraordinarily efficient” at transmission between hosts and would likely not totally disappear.

“I must say that the degree of efficiency of transmissibility of this is really unprecedented in anything that I’ve seen. It’s an extraordinarily efficient virus in transmitting from one person to another,” Fauci said. “These kinds of viruses don’t just disappear.”

“I think it’s a little misleading maybe to compare what we’re going through now with HIV or SARS. They’re really different,” he added.

The newest U.S. death toll comes as states around the country as well as the White House have been pushing to reopen businesses in the coming weeks.