国际英语新闻:1st LD Writethru: U.S. COVID-19 deaths top 220,000 -- Johns Hopkins University

NEW YORK, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- U.S. COVID-19 deaths surpassed 220,000 on Monday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

With the national caseload topping 8.2 million, the death toll across the United States rose to 220,020 as of 4:25 p.m. local time (2025 GMT), according to the CSSE.

New York state reported 33,366 fatalities, at the top of the U.S. state-level death toll list. Texas recorded the second most deaths of 17,468. The states of California, New Jersey and Florida all confirmed more than 16,000 deaths, the tally showed.

States with more than 7,000 fatalities also include Massachusetts, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan.

The United States remains the nation hit the worst by the pandemic, with the world's highest caseload and death toll, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the global deaths.

The United States reached the grim milestone of 100,000 coronavirus deaths on May 27 and 200,000 deaths on Sept. 22.

Furthermore, an updated model forecast by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington shows that 389,087 deaths may have been caused by COVID-19 in the United States by Feb. 1, 2021, based on current projection scenario.