US sees deadliest day so far

The death toll in the US from the coronavirus pandemic has topped 5,300, while the country witnessed a stunning single-day record of 884 people killed in just 24 hours.

The US death toll is lower than those of Italy and Spain but above the 3,318 recorded in China, where the pandemic first emerged in December. The US leads the world in the number of cases, with at least 227,000.

And in a sign of the devastating economic impact of the epidemic, a record 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week as businesses were forced to shut down as part of the mitigation efforts and layoffs in manufacturing, transportation and other sectors, according to numbers released on Thursday.

More people had applied for jobless benefits in the last two week – 3.3 million had filed the week before – than in the six months of the Great Recession, The Washington Post reported.

Also, in line with White House experts’ earlier warning that 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die in the epidemic even if mitigation efforts were implemented fully, the Pentagon is reported to be preparing to provide 100,000 body bags for civilian use.

US President Donald Trump, who earlier had downplayed the pandemic’s impact on the US, said on 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”.

As the number of coronavirus cases and fatalities continued to climb, health services across America, especially in areas with high incidence of the illness, have complained of crippling shortages of protective gear for health care workers such as masks, gloves, gowns and face shields.

There is an additional urgency to the crisis as the health services brace themselves for a peak in cases and deaths, which is feared in two weeks.

The number of confirmed cases in the country increased by about 29,000. New York state remained the worst impacted, with at least 84,000 cases and over 2,220 deaths. New York City accounted for a large number of them with 1,374 at one stage, almost a fourth of all deaths in the country.

With NYC’s hospitals under severe pressure, Samaritan Purse, a charity from North Carolina, set up a 68-bed field hospital in Central Park, the city’s hub of major concerts, rallies and other public events. It took in its first patient on Wednesday. “We are here to stand with New Yorkers and meet the needs of people stricken with the coronavirus,” the charity said in a statement.

A six-week-old baby girl has died from Covid-19 in the state of Connecticut, governor Ned Lamont said on Thursday, stressing that the death is a reminder that “nobody is safe with this virus”.

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