The coronavirus death toll in the U.S. surpassed 25,000 people on Tuesday, according to the count by Johns Hopkins University.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. has reported 598,670 cases and 25,239 deaths. The milestone comes as the federal government begins to consider the process of reopening the country and scaling back social distancing guidelines. 

Last week, the U.S. passed Italy as the nation with the most deaths from COVID-19 and it continues to lead by more than 4,000. The United States accounts for more than a quarter of the total recorded cases globally, though testing resources and population vary in affected countries. 

Though the U.S. has much higher case rates than other countries, its fatality rate of just over 4 percent is lower than in other places, such as Italy and Spain. Worldwide, COVID-19 has killed a little more than 6 percent of confirmed cases. 

However, the U.S. is still faring worse than other countries that took more aggressive mitigation actions early on, such as Germany and South Korea, where the fatality rate is less than 2.5 percent. 

The number of cases globally is nearing its own milestone of 2 million. As of Tuesday afternoon, there are 1,978,769 confirmed cases worldwide and 125,196 recorded deaths.