The number of confirmed new coronavirus cases in The United States passed the 300,000 mark today, while more than 8,160 people have died from complications related to Covid-19. The US has about 25 per cent of all global confirmed cases, though testing across the world is uneven.
The US had just 1,000 cases and about 30 deaths on March 10. New York State remains the hardest hit area of the US, with more than a third of all cases and about 40 per cent of the deaths.
While in New York state, coronavirus-related illnesses killed 630 people in the last day, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday, in the bleakest 24 hours yet for the U.S. state hit hardest by the pandemic.
The novel coronavirus has now killed 3,565 people in the state and the situation is particularly worrying on Long Island, east of New York City, where the number of cases “is like a fire spreading,” Cuomo told a news conference.
Health experts calculate that New York, home both to bustling Manhattan and hilly farm country stretching to the Canadian border, might be around a week away from the worst point in the health crisis which has killed about 60,000 people worldwide.
“We’re not yet at the apex, we’re getting closer … Our reading of the projections is we’re somewhere in the seven-day range,” Cuomo said.
“It’s only been 30 days since our first case,” he said. “It feels like an entire lifetime.”
The United States has the world’s highest number of known cases of COVID-19, the flu-like respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus. More than 300,000 people have tested positive in the United States and over 8,100 have died, according to a Reuters tally.
White House medical experts have forecast that between 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could be killed in the pandemic, even if sweeping orders to stay home are followed.
New York City alone accounted for more than a quarter of the U.S. coronavirus deaths tallied by Johns Hopkins University. Hospitals and morgues in the city are struggling to treat the desperately ill and bury the dead.
The data is based on a tally compiled by Johns Hopkins University and the news is compiled from SPA.
