The US death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 2,700 in one day, the highest since April, Johns Hopkins University said.

The new tally of 2,731 fatalities raises the overall known death toll in America to 273,181 since the pandemic started late last year. The number of new infections over the past 24 hours was 195,121, the university said.

The head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned the Covid-19 pandemic, still raging with unprecedented fury nationwide, will pose the country's grimmest health crisis yet over the next few months, before vaccines become widely available.

CDC Director Dr Robert Redfield urged stricter adherence to safety precautions such as wearing face coverings, social distancing and good hand hygiene to slow the spread of a highly contagious respiratory virus now claiming well over 2,000 US lives a day.