The number of people who have died from the novel coronavirus in the United States exceeded 50,000 Friday, marking the latest in a series of morbid milestones for the country hardest hit by the pandemic.
The death toll, based on reporting from Johns Hopkins University, remains the highest in the world and is nearly twice that of Italy, which had been the country with the most fatal cases until it was surpassed by the U.S.
earlier this month. As of 11 a.m. ET on April 24, it stood at 50,031 deaths. Nearly a third of those deaths have been reported in New York City alone, which has seen over 16,000 fatalities.
The state at large has seen an additional 4,200 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. Overall, nearly 870,000 lab-confirmed cases of