United States surpasses 20 million confirmed coronavirus cases

The United States tallied a grim number on the first day of 2021, with the number of confirmed coronavirus cases since the pandemic began reaching more than 20 million.

That amount corresponds to about a quarter of all infections recorded worldwide, according to data from John Hopkins University's tracking site.

No other country comes close to as many confirmed coronavirus cases in terms of absolute numbers.

In India, there are 10.3 million confirmed cases, while in Brazil, it's 7.7 million. Experts also assume there are a high number of unreported coronavirus cases in most countries.

The US also reported over 346,000 deaths in relation to the coronavirus so far, out of a population of 330 million people.

The tally comes less than a week after the first case of the Covid-19 variant B.1.1.7, a new and more highly infectious variant of the disease that was previously discovered in Britain, was found in the western state of Colorado.