About 1 in every 500 Americans has died from COVID
The country's daily death average continues to surge, now standing at more than 1,100 deaths reported a day. This marks the nation's highest average in nearly six months.
On Tuesday, the death toll crossed 650,000 Americans lost to the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, meaning that 1 in every 504 Americans has died from the virus.
![](https://s.abcnews.com/images/US/covid-death-casket_hpEmbed_20210907-214307_16x11_992.jpg)
The U.S. COVID death toll is now more than 218 times higher than the number of lives lost during the U.S. attacks on Sept. 11. It is also rapidly approaching the total number of American deaths that were recorded during the 1918 influenza pandemic.
Prior to the Labor Day holiday, the U.S. daily case average stood around 150,000 cases a day. About a year ago, around Labor Day, the country was averaging about 38,000 new cases a day.
-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos