U.S. COVID-19 cases surpass 19 mln -- Johns Hopkins University

People visit the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Dec. 27, 2020. The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 19 million on Sunday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

NEW YORK, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 19 million on Sunday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

U.S. COVID-19 case count rose to 19,000,572, with a total of 332,145 deaths, as of 11:22 a.m. local time (1622 GMT), according to the CSSE tally.

With the most cases, 2,123,163, California became the first U.S. state to have more than 2 million cases. Texas reported 1,668,263 cases, followed by Florida with 1,264,588 cases. The states of Illinois and New York both registered more than 900,000 cases.

Other states with over 500,000 cases include Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin, the CSSE data showed.

By far, the United States remains the nation worst hit by the pandemic, with the world's most cases and deaths, making up more than 23 percent of the global caseload.

Based on current projection scenario, an updated model forecast by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington projected a total of 567,195 COVID-19 deaths in the United States by April 1, 2021.