The US was the first country to report 1,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day on Wednesday as the death toll soared past 5,000 – and it continues to rise.
With more than 236,000 infections across the country, America is now worse affected by COVID-19 than any other country in the world has been.
The virus shows no signs of slowing down, despite the entire nation being on lockdown, and experts say as many as 200,000 will die by the time the pandemic is over.
On Thursday, the death toll continued to rise to 5,647.
There are fears that the next epicenter will be the city of Detroit, after the death toll in Michigan doubled in just three days – a sign of exponential growth which scientists use as an indicator of spikes.
The US death toll is now dwarfing the number of deaths officially reported in China (3,309), where the outbreak first originated back in December.
While the death toll in Italy (13,155) and Spain (9,387) is still higher, the US eclipsed the hard-hit European nations’ confirmed cases, with both Italy (110,574) and Spain (104,118) reporting only around half the number of infections.
Italy’s deadliest day was on March 26th, when 969 new deaths were reported. China’s figures are less clear.
Contemporaneous reports indicate that its deadliest day was in February when 242 died in Hubei province alone. There is growing skepticism over the country’s reported deaths and infections, with some saying the government is hiding the true number.
Michigan now has the third highest death toll in the US after reporting a spike in its figures in the last couple of days.
The state’s death toll had reached 337 on Wednesday night – an increase of 78 – with more than 9,300 confirmed cases. Last week, its death toll increase was around 4.3
New Jersey is second behind New York with 355 deaths and 22,255 infections. New York continues to bear the brunt, with 92,381 infections and 2,373 deaths across the state.
New York City rushed to bring in more medical professionals and ambulances and parked refrigerated morgue trucks on the streets to collect the dead.
Boroughs outside of Manhattan have been hardest hit, according to a New York City Health Department map which breaks down the city’s coronavirus cases by zip code up until March 31.
The map revealed that the city’s poorer neighborhoods are being hardest hit by the pandemic, while rich New Yorkers in the likes of Greenwich Village and Brooklyn Heights are not being infected to the same level.
Elmhurst and Kew Gardens Hills in Queens, the South Bronx, and East New York in Brooklyn have the most cases of the areas across the city.
In Rockaway, Queens, 436 have tested positive among the community that lives in public housing in Far Rockaway but at the far end of the island, residents in their $1million Belle Harbor homes only have 143 cases.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio drafted in some support Wednesday, appointing controversial former NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill as the city’s COVID-19 Senio Advisor.
This map ranks the states with the most Coronavirus cases. Michigan and Florida are emerging as hotspots for the virus
A graph by computer scientist Mark Handley shows how the US’s trajectory compared to other countries until March 28
A separate graph shows how the states vary in comparison to Italy until March 31
Michigan has one of the fastest growing death tolls in America and Detroit could be a new epicenter the virus
Speaking at the daily coronavirus briefing, de Blasio introduced O’Neill as his ‘senior advisor helping us wage this battle against coronavirus’ and said the former cop would be tasked with making sure the city’s hospitals and medical professionals have the supplies they need to tackle the growing pandemic.
His responsibilities will include working with City Hall and other agencies to maintain a strong chain of supplies and healthcare workers to hospitals.
De Blasio also warned New Yorkers that the ‘toughest weeks are ahead’ and again hammered home the date of April 5 as ‘D-Day’ for the city.
Sunday has been touted as the day the city will run out of essential medical supplies as it currently stands.
‘April 5 is a crucial, crucial date for New York City,’ he said in the press conference.
‘As we prepare for a real upsurge, as I go into the specific numbers, I want to emphasize how much effort has already been expended. it’s unbelievable. How many people have gathered together to provide support already. The toughest weeks are ahead.’
New York City needs 3.3million N95 masks, 2.1million surgical masks, 100,000 isolation gowns and 400 ventilators by Sunday, de Blasio said.
At least 2,500 more ventilators are needed for the healthcare system to cope with the expected surge in cases just next week.
‘We have to make sure it happens in time. Those are all very, very important,’ de Blasio said.
In the state of New York, the USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds, 12 operating rooms and a full medical staff, arrived in the city on Monday. It will be used to treat non-coronavirus patients to free up space in city hospitals.
Field hospitals have also been set up in Central Park, the Javits Center and even in hotels like the Plaza and St Regis. The indoor tennis center that is the site of the U.S. Open tournament is being turned into a hospital as well.
Makeshift morgues have been put in place at various hospitals across the city as the death toll continues to rise and healthcare workers struggle to keep up with the body count.
Other states are also beginning to see a ramp up in cases.
Connecticut confirmed the youngest known victim of the killer virus worldwide Wednesday, after a six-week-old baby died from coronavirus.
The infant was taken to the hospital unresponsive last week and could not be revived.
A COVID-19 patient arrives at a field hospital built by Christian humanitarian organization Samaritans Purse in Central Park, New York on April 1
Volunteers from the International Christian relief organization Samaritans Purse set up an Emergency Field Hospital for patients suffering from the coronavirus in Central Park across Fifth Avenue from Mt. Sinai Hospital on Tuesday
A body wrapped in plastic is unloaded from a refrigerated truck and handled by medical workers wearing personal protective equipment due to COVID-19 concerns
Their death was announced on Wednesday by Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, saying he believes the infant is the youngest fatality ‘anywhere’.
‘It is with heartbreaking sadness today that we can confirm the first pediatric fatality in Connecticut linked to #COVID-19.
‘A 6-week-old newborn from the Hartford area was brought unresponsive to a hospital late last week and could not be revived.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said a six-week-old baby has died from the virus, becoming the world’s youngest fatality
‘Testing confirmed last night that the newborn was COVID-19 positive,’ Lamont announced.
President Donald Trump has warned Americans to brace for a ‘hell of a bad two weeks’ ahead as the White House projected there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the US even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained.
Trump called it ‘a matter of life and death’ for Americans to heed his administration’s guidelines and predicted the country would soon see a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.
‘I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,’ Trump said Tuesday. ‘This is going to be one of the roughest two or three weeks we’ve ever had in our country… We’re going to lose thousands of people.’
The jaw-dropping projections were laid out as officials described a death toll that in a best-case scenario would likely be greater than the more than 53,000 American lives lost during World War I. The model’s high end neared the realm of possibility that Americans lost to the virus could approach the 291,000 Americans killed on the battlefield during World War II.
President Donald Trump warned Americans to brace for a ‘hell of a bad two weeks’ ahead as the White House projected there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the US even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained
Dr Tony Fauci, the country’s leading virus expert, called the numbers ‘sobering’ and urged Americans to ‘step on the accelerator’ with their collective mitigation efforts.
Trump’s comments came after he announced on Sunday that he was extending to April 30 the social distancing guidelines that advise Americans to cease large gatherings, work from home, suspend onsite learning at schools and more in a nationwide effort to stem the spread of the virus.
It was an abrupt reversal for Trump who spent much of last week targeting April 12 as the day he wanted to see Americans ‘pack the pews’ for Easter Sunday services.
The latest data on the cases and deaths comes from John Hopkins University.
The tally records that 3,309 people have died from the virus in China.
However, experts and politicians have cast doubt on the numbers coming out of China, and have even accused the country of lying and covering up key information during virtually every stage of its coronavirus response.
Beijing initially tried to cover up the virus by punishing medics who discovered it, denying it could spread person-to-person and delaying a lockdown of affected regions – meaning early opportunities to control the spread were lost.
Then, once the virus began spreading, the Communist Party began censoring public information about it and spread disinformation overseas – including suggesting that US troops could have been the initial carriers.
Even now, prominent politicians have warned that infection and death totals being reported by the regime are likely to be wrong – with locals in the epicenter of Wuhan suggesting the true tolls could be ten times higher.
Chinese health officials admitted Tuesday that more than 1,500 cases of the virus involving asymptomatic people that had not been previously reported.
Worldwide, more than 800,000 people have been infected and over 40,000 have died, according to the tally from Johns Hopkins University.
More than 80 percent of the US population are in lockdown after governors from Arizona and Tennessee joined other states in issuing stay-at-home orders effective Tuesday – the same day that the US death toll eclipsed China.
As of Tuesday, 32 states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico were all in lockdown, with residents told to stay home except for essential workers or to go out for essential needs such as buying groceries or seeking medical attention.
The states with stay-at-home orders are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Pennsylvania, Nevada and North Carolina – as well as the territory of Guam – do not have stay-at-home orders but have shuttered all non-essential businesses.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey seemed to finally bow to pressure Monday and signed an executive order that all residents must remain in their homes from March 31 until at least April 30.
But several states are yet to take such action, which experts have warned is crucial to slowing the spread of the pandemic.
