NEW YORK/OTTAWA, Oct 20 (NNN-Xinhua) — US COVID-19 deaths surpassed 220,000 on Monday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
With the national caseload topping 8.2 million, the death toll across the United States rose to 220,020 as of 4:25 p.m. local time (2025 GMT), according to the CSSE.
New York state reported 33,366 fatalities, at the top of the U.S. state-level death toll list. Texas recorded the second most deaths of 17,468. The states of California, New Jersey and Florida all confirmed more than 16,000 deaths, the tally showed.
States with more than 7,000 fatalities also include Massachusetts, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan.
The United States remains the nation hit the worst by the pandemic, with the world’s highest caseload and death toll, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the global deaths.
The United States reached the grim milestone of 100,000 coronavirus deaths on May 27 and 200,000 deaths on Sept. 22.
Meanwhile, northern neighbour Canada hit a milestone on Monday with 200,039 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 9,772 deaths.
Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Theresa Tam said that though the numbers are high and continue to increase at an accelerated pace, it is important to remember that the vast majority of Canadians remain susceptible to COVID-19.
“We all need to continue with individual precautions to keep ourselves, our families and our communities safer,” said Tam in a statement.
As the resurgence of COVID-19 activity continues, Canada is tracking a range of epidemiological indicators to monitor where the disease is most active, where it is spreading and how it is impacting the health of Canadians and public health, laboratory and healthcare capacity, Tam said.
She also said that as hospitalizations and deaths tend to lag behind increased disease activity by one to several weeks, the concern is that Canada has yet to see the extent of severe impacts associated with the ongoing increase in COVID-19 disease activity.
“Our primary goal for the pandemic response remains to minimize severe illness and deaths due to COVID-19. Public health is focussed on making the response sustainable through to the end of the pandemic while balancing the health, social and economic consequences,” she added.
The Canadian government announced on Monday the Canada-U.S. border closure agreement has been extended for another month to Nov 21.
The agreement banning non-essential travel was first imposed in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has been renewed every month since.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday the situation in the United States continues to be of concern. “We’d love to have the border open, but we can’t do that unless we’re comfortable that Canadians are being kept safe.” — NNN-XINHUA
