For the first time in nearly three and a half months, the United States recorded fewer than 1,000 deaths in a day from Covid-19 on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University. In 24 hours, 749 people died from the coronavirus, far below the peak of 4,473 deaths recorded on January 12.

The daily US death toll has not been below the thousand mark since November 29, when 822 people died in a 24-hour period.

That indicates that the slowdown in the epidemic is continuing in the United States, where infection rates and deaths have fallen to similar levels as before Halloween, Thanksgiving and other end-of-year holidays that were marked by travel and larger gatherings that boosted the spread of the virus.