NEW YORK -- The death toll from COVID-19 exceeded 70,000 worldwide by 7:01 am local time (1101 GMT) on Monday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The fresh figure reached 70,356, as the global total confirmed cases reached 1,286,409, an interactive map maintained by the university's Center for Systems Science and Engineering showed.

Italy had seen the most deaths, standing at 15,887 among 128,948 confirmed cases, followed by Spain, with 13,055 deaths among 135,032 cases.

The United States reported 337,933 confirmed cases, the most in the world, and its death toll stood at 9,653.