The United States has set a third straight daily record for new Covid-19 infections, notching more than 127,000 cases, John Hopkins University has reported.

And the death toll over the past 24 hours was 1,149, the Baltimore-based university said.

The outbreak has been surging for weeks across the country, with the Midwest worst-hit even as the number of new diagnoses was approaching springtime levels in the south, northeast and west. While deaths remain far lower than the peak in spring, Friday was also the fourth day in a row that fatalities were above 1,000. The last time people were dying of Covid-19 at that rate in the US was early September.

The US — the worst-hit country in the world in terms of deaths and total cases — has more than 236,000 coronavirus-related fatalities and 9.7 million known infections.