#Coronavirus death toll surges to over 500K globally

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Workers collect the coffins of people that have been recently cremated amid the new coronavirus pandemic, at the La Recoleta cemetery in Santiago, Chile
AP/Esteban Felix

The number of people who have died due to the coronavirus worldwide surpassed a half a million on Sunday, according to new data.

Reported fatalities of COVID-19 stood at 500,108 as of Sunday evening, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

More than 125,700 of the recorded deaths were in the United States.

Brazil followed in the grim count with 57,070 fatalities, and then the United Kingdom with 43,634 deaths.

At least 10 million people globally have caught the respiratory illness, which emerged last year in Wuhan, China.

The US has seen more than 2.5 million infections since the beginning of the pandemic, with cases recently soaring in some states including Florida, Texas, California and Arizona.