New York, Dec 31 : US Covid-19 deaths surpassed 340,000 on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. With the national case count topping 19.6 million, the death toll across the US rose to 340,586, according to the CSSE data, Xinhua news agency reported. New York State reported 37,687 fatalities, at the top of the US state-level death toll list. Texas recorded the second most deaths of 27,298. The states of California and Florida both confirmed more than 21,000 deaths, the CSSE tally showed. States with more than 10,000 fatalities also include New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts and Georgia. The US remains the nation hit the worst by the pandemic, with the world's highest caseload and death toll, accounting for more than 18 per cent of the global deaths. Tuesday marked the country's deadliest day ever since the pandemic began. US daily deaths associated with Covid-19 surged to 3,725 on Tuesday, the highest single-day rise in death toll, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. In addition, hospitalizations in the United States hit an all-time high of 124,686 on Tuesday, according to The COVID Tracking Project. A variant of Covid-19 that was first discovered in Britain was detected in the US state of Colorado on Tuesday. /IANS