The average number of daily COVID-19 deaths in the US has increased to its highest level since early March 2021 amid the ongoing Delta variant-fueled resurgence, a media report said. "The country is once again at a point where an average of more than 2,000 people are dying of COVID-19 every day," Xinhua news agency quoted the CNN report as saying on Wednesday, citing data from the Johns Hopkins University.

Over the past week, with some eight people out of every 100,000 residents dying from the disease, the average death rate in the 10 least vaccinated states was about four times higher than the rate in the 10 most vaccinated states, according to a CNN analysis.

In its latest update on Thursday morning, the Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering revealed that the country's current caseload and death toll stood at 42,539,373 and 681,111, respectively.

Till date, 54.8 per cent of the total US population has been vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the UCenters for Disease Control and Prevention. President Joe Biden earlier this month rolled out a new rule that will require all private employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers are either vaccinated or tested once a week. However, the vaccine mandates have spawned a strong pushback from several Republican states