US accounts for 25% of world COVID-19 toll after recording 2,494 new deaths

Madison Square Garden displays the Northwell Health Hope Tracker during the coronavirus pandemic on April 25, 2020 in New York City. (Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images/AFP)

Supporters of a group called "Open Texas" rally to re-open Texas businesses, schools and religious services shut down by restrictions put in place to address the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as they gather in a park outside of the City Hall in Frisco, Texas, on April 25, 2020. (REUTERS/Jeremy Lock)

• US overall death toll rises to 53,511 as the world total passed 200,000
• Number of infections nears 1 million in the US as the world total approached 3 million

WASHINGTON: The United States recorded 2,494 more coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, according to figures reported Saturday night by Johns Hopkins University.
The country now has an overall death toll of 53,511, with 936,293 confirmed infections, according to a tally by the Baltimore-based university at 8:30 p.m. (0030 GMT Sunday).
The United States is by far the hardest-hit country in the global pandemic, in terms of both confirmed infections and deaths.
The toll of 2,494 was a jump from Friday, when the US recorded the lowest number of virus deaths — 1,258 — in nearly three weeks.

The world total for number of people infected by the virus, and the death toll passed 200,000 late Thursday.