NEW YORK - US COVID-19 deaths surpassed 260,000 on Wednesday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

With the national caseload topping 12.6 million, the death toll across the United States rose to 260,322 as of 11:25 am local time (1625 GMT), according to the CSSE data.

New York state reported 34,362 fatalities, at the top of the U.S. state-level death toll list. Texas recorded the second most deaths, standing at 21,245. The states of California, Florida and New Jersey all confirmed more than 16,000 deaths, the tally showed.

States with more than 9,000 fatalities also include Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan.

The United States remains the nation hit the worst by the pandemic, with the world's highest caseload and death toll, accounting for more than 18 percent of global deaths.

The United States reported 2,146 daily deaths associated with COVID-19 on Tuesday, the highest since May, the CSSE chart showed.

An updated model forecast by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington projected a total of 470,974 COVID-19 deaths in the United States by March 1, 2021, based on current projection scenario.