WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — The total number of people killed by the coronavirus worldwide surpassed 750,000 on Thursday, according to the count by Johns Hopkins University.
The United States has the most deaths at just over 166,000, followed by Brazil's 104,000 deaths and Mexico with more than 54,000, as of early Thursday afternoon.
The U.S. also leads the world in the number of coronavirus cases, at 5.2 million.
The death milestone comes as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the U.S. could be in for the "worst fall from a public health perspective" ever seen if Americans don't follow COVID-19 safety measures.
CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told WebMD that all Americans need to do four simple things to help the fight against the coronavirus: wear a mask, practice social distancing, frequently wash hands and be smart about crowds.
"And I keep telling people, I'm not asking some of America to do it. We all got to do it," Redfield said. "This is one of those interventions that got to be 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99%, if it's going to work for us."
In England, researchers at Imperial College estimate 6% of England’s population — or 3.4 million people — have been infected by COVID-19.
The estimate is based on a study of 100,000 randomly selected volunteers who used home finger-prick blood tests to find antibodies for the virus that causes COVID-19.
The study, through the end of June, found London had the highest infection rate at 13%. Black, Asian and other ethnic groups were two to three times more likely to have had COVID-19 than white people. People of color in the U.S. have also been disproportionately affected by the virus, especially Latinos and Black people.
England had nearly 271,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to the tally by JHU, compared to the U.K.'s second highest country, Scotland, with more than 19,000 cases. The United Kingdom is listed with more than 315,000 cases total.
The majority of the JHU confirmed case count comes from tests using nasal swabs.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
