US coronavirus death toll passes 100,000

More than 100,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the US, according to the latest data.

The country passed the grim milestone Wednesday, with more than 1.6 million testing positive for the bug, according to a count from Johns Hopkins University.

The news comes just over four months after officials announced that the virus had reached US soil — when a Washington state man was identified as the first patient on Jan. 21.

Since then, more Americans have been lost to the coronavirus than deaths from the Vietnam and Korean wars combined.

The US continues to lead the world for the highest death toll, followed by the United Kingdom, Italy and France, the data shows.

Still, there have been optimistic signs of relief for the US, with many of the worse-hit areas seeing key measures declining.

New York — the epicenter of the nation’s crisis — saw new hospitalizations for the virus drop this week to the lowest level since the state started to track the pandemic.

New Jersey, which is the second hardest-hit state, has also reported downward trends in recent weeks, including the number of coronavirus hospitalizations Monday at the lowest in seven weeks, according to NJ.com.

Gov. Phil Murphy has said hospitalizations are the best real-time indicator of the state’s COVID-19 outbreak and one of the main measures being used to ease the lockdown orders.

But across the world, health leaders have warned that the pandemic is far from over, with more than 5.6 million cases recorded, and at least 352,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.

With Post wires