#US coronavirus cases surpass 4 million

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A volunteer dressed in personal protective gear offers instructions to people waiting in line at a walk-in coronavirus test center in Los Angeles, California.

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The number of coronavirus cases in the US has surpassed 4 million, with nearly 144,000 Americans now killed by the global pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The grim toll makes the country by far the hardest hit by the deadly bug, topping Brazil’s 2.2 million cases and India’s 1.2 million, the numbers show.

The US has seen a resurgence of the virus in the past month, as some states began easing stay-at-home restrictions, with hot spots emerging in Arizona, California, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, among others.

California now has more than 425,000 confirmed cases, and Arizona has a rate of infection of 2,127.5 per 100,00 residents — more than 2 percent of the entire state’s population, according to a report by NPR.

About 59,600 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Wednesday nationwide, about 300 short of the country’s peak in April, CNN reported.

New York state, which has lost more than 32,500 people to the coronavirus since the outbreak earlier this year, has seen the number of cases waning dramatically in recent weeks. On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the Big Apple saw its first day without a confirmed death.