The number of people confirmed as being diagnosed with COVID-19 in the United States has exceeded one million after cases doubled in 18 days.

At least 1,002,498 coronavirus infections have now been confirmed in the US, about a third of the global total, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Spain has the second highest number of cases with at least 232,000.

More than 56,400 Americans have died with COVID-19 - an average of about 2,000 a day this month.

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The number of deaths is thought to be higher as state public health officials warned shortages of trained workers and materials has limited testing capacity.


About 30% of the entire country's cases have occurred in New York state, followed by New Jersey, Massachusetts, California and Pennsylvania.

More than 74,000 Americans are now predicted to die by 4 August - a stark increase from a 22 April forecast of more than 67,600, according to the University of Washington's predictive model which is often cited by White House officials.

With the world's third-largest population, the US has around five times as many cases as the next hardest-hit countries of Spain, Italy and France.

However, it has about 30 infections per 10,000 people compared to Spain's 48, and the US figure is also lower than Belgium, Switzerland and Italy.

China, where COVID-19 originated in December last year, has nearly 84,000 confirmed cases and 4,637 recorded deaths from the disease, although that number is expected to be higher.

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The US has the highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world and it now exceeds the total number of Americans killed in the 1950-53 Korean War, which was 36,516.

However, the number falls far short of the deaths from Spanish flu, which began in 1918 and killed 675,000 Americans, according to US authorities.