(Eagle News) — The number of coronavirus cases in the United States hits more than 216,000 on Thursday as the death toll continued to rise and breach 5,000, according to the virus dashboard of the Johns Hopkins University tracking global COVID-19 cases.
As of Thursday noon, April 2 (PST), the US remains as the country with the most number of COVID-19 cases at 216,721, with reported coronavirus-related deaths at 5,137.
The biggest number came from New York City with at least 1,374 fatalities. The whole state of New York reported 2,219 deaths according to another tally by worldometers.info, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics.
Other US states also reported new virus-related deaths.
One of these victims was a six-week-old in Connecticut who was brought unresponsive to a hospital late last week, believed to be the youngest victim yet of the virus.
“Testing confirmed last night that the newborn was COVID-19 positive,” Governor Ned Lamont wrote on Twitter. “This is absolutely heartbreaking.”
The victims of the new coronavirus have been disproportionately elderly, but a number of recent cases have highlighted that the disease can befall even youngsters with seemingly strong immune systems.
Almost all US states reported virus-related deaths so far. After New York State, the states with more than a hundred reported fatalities are in: New Jersey (355), Michigan (337), Louisiana (273), Washington (254), California (213), Georgia (154), Illinois (141), Massachusetts (122), and Florida (101).
This is according to Worldometer website.
The US death toll is lower than those of Italy and Spain but above the 3,316 recorded for China, where the pandemic first emerged in December.
The death toll in the US over the past 24 hours was a new one-day record of 884, and new known cases exceeded 25,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University database.
President Donald Trump, who earlier had downplayed the pandemic’s impact on the US, said Wednesday that “we’re going to have a couple of weeks, starting pretty much now, but especially a few days from now, that are going to be horrific.”
Last Sunday, senior US scientist Anthony Fauci issued a cautious prediction that the novel coronavirus could claim 100,000 to 200,000 lives in the country.
Total COVID-19 cases worldwide is almost 1 million, or 937,783 to be exact, according to the John Hopkins University virus dashboard.
Total deaths are at 47,261 while total recoveries reached 194,330.
(with a report from Agence France Presse)
