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.”
