No fewer than six million people have been infected by coronavirus in the United States according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University, adding one million new infections in less than a month.

The country remains by far the most impacted in the world by the pandemic in absolute terms, with nearly a quarter of global infections and 183,203 deaths from Covid-19, the Baltimore-based university’s tracker showed.

The number of new daily cases has declined in recent weeks, but the virus is far from disappearing in the US — despite President Donald Trump’s repeated assertion that it will — and the national average hides huge regional disparities.

Trump, whose re-election bid has been hit by the economic impact of lockdown restrictions, has promised a complete victory over the pandemic, and a readily-available vaccine by the end of the year.

The US charted its five millionth case on August 9. That was just 17 days after it hit four million.

Global coronavirus infections have soared past 25 million, as countries tightened restrictions to halt the health crisis that has upended life for most of humanity.