US surpasses 700,000 COVID-19 deaths: Report

With no respite from coronavirus (Covid-19) despite vaccination, US fatalities surpassed 700,000 on Friday, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University, a toll roughly equivalent to the population of the nation's capital Washington.

The grim threshold comes with an average of well over 1,000 dying each day, in a country where 55.7% of the population is now fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, AFP reported.

The United States has organized among the world's most effective vaccine roll-outs, after a heavily criticized early response to the pandemic. But it nonetheless finds itself having notched the most fatalities in the world, far exceeding other frontrunners such as Brazil and India, and facing a resurgence in cases due to the prominence of the highly contagious Delta variant.

Nearly 4.8 million people worldwide have died since the outbreak began in China in December 2019, according to an AFP tally from official sources.