Coronavirus deaths in the US rose by at least 2,228 on Tuesday, a single-day record, to top 27,000 as officials debated how to reopen the economy without reigniting the outbreak. The previous single-day record was 2,069, set last Friday.
The US, with the world’s third-largest population, passed a second milestone on Tuesday with over 600,000 reported cases, three times more than any other country.
New York City’s health department, meanwhile, said the death toll is now over 10,000, including the 3,700 deaths added on Tuesday. Health officials have cautioned that deaths are a “lagging indicator” and do not mean that the sweeping stay-at-home restrictions are a failure. New York state and some other hard-hit areas continue to report sharp decreases in hospitalisations and patients on ventilators.
Health experts had forecast deaths would peak this week but there had been hopes the worst was behind the US when new deaths reported on Sunday and Monday were about 1,500 per day, far below last week’s running tally of roughly 2,000 deaths every 24 hours, according to a Reuters tally.
With schools and many businesses shuttered, the measures to slow the spread of the illness have taken a painful toll on the economy.
The shutdown is costing the US economy perhaps $25 billion a day in lost output, St Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said.
In NYC, the 60% spike in reported deaths underscored the enormous losses endured in the nation’s most populous city, where the sounds of wailing sirens have echoed almost non-stop through largely empty streets for weeks.
The city’s revised count, 10,367 in all, took the number of coronavirus deaths nationwide towards 30,000 – New York accounting for the biggest share of deaths.
New York City’s health department said it will now also count any fatality deemed a “probable” coronavirus death, defined as a victim whose “death certificate lists as a cause of death ‘Covid-19’ or an equivalent.”
March 11 was used as the starting point because that was the date of the first confirmed coronavirus death, the city said.
“Behind every death is a friend, a family member, a loved on,” said health commissioner Oxiris Barbot. “We are focused on ensuring that every New Yorker who died because of Covid-19 gets counted.”
The new approach in NYC could pave the way for similar policies across the country, possibly leading to a surge in reported US coronavirus fatalities.
Louisiana, another hot spot, and California also reported record daily spikes in deaths on Tuesday, despite signs across the country in recent days the outbreak was beginning to ebb.
New York governor Mario Cuomo, whose state’s health care network was strained to breaking point by a wave of Covid-19 hospitalisations, had said on Monday it appeared “the worst is over”.
New York state and some other hard-hit areas continue to report sharp decreases in hospitalisations and numbers of patients on ventilators, although front-line healthcare workers and resources remained under extraordinary stress.
Meanwhile, the US government has been pushing for reopening the country and the economy and President Donald Trump unveiled on Tuesday bipartisan groups of advisers he will be consulting to determine the way forward. The decision to end or continue social-distancing and other mitigation efforts would rest ultimately with state governors. Trump acknowledged as much on Tuesday, dialling down a feud with governors, some of whom have pushed back against his claims of “total” authority in deciding when to end the curbs, and threatened to defy him if he persisted.
In another development, The Washington Post reported that Trump’s name will be printed on checks the US treasury will send out to American families as part of a $2.2tn stimulus package.
