More than 60,000 people in the U.S. have now officially died from the coronavirus , data compiled by Johns Hopkins University shows.

The increasingly grim figure exceeds predictions President Donald Trump made just last week when he sought to frame a maximum of 50,000 to 60,000 total deaths as a win for America and a validation of his administrations highly criticized pandemic response.

We did the right thing because if we didnt do it, you would have had a million people, a million and a half people, maybe 2 million people dead, Trump said . Now, were going toward 50, Im hearing, or 60,000 people.

One is too many. I always say it: One is too many, he continued. But were going toward 50- or 60,000 people. Thats at the lower as you know, the low number was supposed to be 100,000 people. We we could end up at 50 to 60.

Its unclear how Trump arrived at 50- or 60,000 deaths as a plausible upper limit. The U.S. death toll was 42,000 on April 20, the day he made the claim. And the actual number of coronavirus-related deaths, not just the official count recorded in hospitals, is likely far higher .