Coronavirus live updates: US coronavirus cases approach 50 million

However, public health experts nationwide are stressing that the majority of coronavirus infections nationwide are still due to the highly transmissible delta variant, which has led to some of the worst outbreaks. of the pandemic. As of early Tuesday, the United States had counted nearly 49.3 million cases of coronavirus since the first infection appeared in January 2020, according to the Washington Post, and more than 786,000 deaths. .