COVID: Death toll tops 900,000 in US, Germany's daily cases near 250,000

NEW YORK: The United States (US) reached the grim milestone of 900,000 COVID-19 deaths on Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

With the national case count topping 76.2 million, the death toll across the US rose to 900,528 as of 5.22 pm local time (2222 GMT), Xinhua news agency quoted the data.

California led the country in COVID-19 deaths, with 80,798 fatalities. Texas reported the second-highest fatalities of 80,459, followed by Florida with 65,993 deaths and New York with 65,578 deaths.

The US remains the country worst hit by the pandemic with the world's highest caseload and death toll, accounting for nearly 20 per cent of the global cases and more than 15 per cent of global deaths.

Last year, the US COVID-19 deaths hit half a million on Feb 22, topped 600,000 on June 15, reached 700,000 on Oct 1 and exceeded 800,000 on Dec 14.

In Germany, daily COVID-19 infections reached a new all-time high on Friday, with 248,838 new cases registered within 24 hours.

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases, the country's seven-day COVID-19 incidence also continued to rise and hit a new record of 1,349.5 infections per 100,000 inhabitants.

"The Omicron wave is slowly reaching the elderly population and more outbreaks are being reported in nursing homes," the RKI said on Twitter.

Despite record figures, the number of COVID-19 patients treated in intensive care units (ICUs) remained at around 2,300, far below the peak of around 5,700 during the height of the second wave in early 2021, according to the German Intensive Care Availability Register (DIVI).

"Studies suggest that the Omicron variant causes a lower share of hospitalisations compared to infections with the Delta variant in infected persons with complete vaccination or booster vaccination," the RKI said in its latest weekly report.

So far, more than 74 per cent of Germany's population had been fully vaccinated. A slight majority of Germans, or 53 per cent, continued to be in favour of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for all adults, according to a DeutschlandTrend survey published by broadcaster ARD on Thursday.

-- BERNAMA