‘We are not winning the game.’ Coronavirus cases surpass 4 million in US

More than 4 million people in the United States have been confirmed with coronavirus, Johns Hopkins University reports.

There have been more than 15 million confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus worldwide, with more than 625,000 deaths, according to the university. More than 143,000 people have died in the United States.

The United States leads the world in confirmed cases, followed by Brazil with more than 2.2 million cases and India with more than 1.2 million, Johns Hopkins University reported.

More than 8.7 million people around the world have recovered from coronavirus including more than 1.2 million in the United States, according to the university.

The latest milestone comes amid a resurgence of the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China, across much of the United States.

“Certainly we are not winning the game right now,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Wednesday, CNBC reported. “We are not beating it.”

“I don’t really see us eradicating it,” Fauci said, although he hopes that the nation can better control the virus with “good public health measures, a degree of global herd immunity and a good vaccine.”

The coronavirus outbreak began in December in Wuhan, China, possibly after the virus passed to humans from bats and pangolins, an Asian scaly anteater, McClatchy News reported.

COVID-19, named because it’s a new type of coronavirus first seen in 2019, comes from a family of viruses responsible for the common cold, SARS, MERS and other ailments.

The World Health Organization has declared coronavirus a global pandemic. In the United States, President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency.

This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 12:30 PM with the headline "‘We are not winning the game.’ Coronavirus cases surpass 4 million in US."