The global death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic reached a grim milestone of 6 million on Sunday as the world dropped most of its mandates and restrictions.

Declines in the numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths prompted much of the U.S. and the world to lift mandates on masks , travel, vaccines, social distancing, events and indoor venues. The latest number of cases total 446 million worldwide with an average daily caseload of over 7,000.

The U.S. is rapidly approaching 1 million total deaths with 957,000 people in the U.S. dead and 79.2 million cases overall. Both signify the highest number of deaths and cases of any country in the world, but the number of daily average deaths is dropping.

Edouard Mathieu, head of data for Our World In Data, told The Associated Press that those numbers are likely on the low side.

“Confirmed deaths represent a fraction of the true number of deaths due to COVID, mostly because of limited testing, and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death,” he said.

The Economist estimates that the actual number of COVID-19 deaths is more likely between 14 million and 23.5 million. While the numbers reported by wealthier Western nations may be more accurate, countries that have less infrastructure to track and treat the number of cases, or that have purposely reported low numbers, are less accurate.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned that the COVID-19 pandemic may be far from over. Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, an epidemiologist at the CDC, was on CBS' “60 Minutes” to discuss what the “new normal” may look like.

Srinivasan said that “new normal” means “we're able to get back to gathering with friends [and] with loved ones. We're able to travel to do some of these things that we love.”

Still, that does not mean throwing caution to the wind.

“But we're always vigilant. And we're ready to reach for things like masks [and] for vaccines when we need them,” Srinivasan said.

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