KNZ NEWS DESK
The United States has set a new record for its daily mortality count, reporting just shy of 2,000 new deaths in the span of a single day, as fatalities in New York – the country’s top hotspot – and beyond continue to mount.
While stats in recent days appeared to show deaths leveling off, the latest figures gathered by Johns Hopkins University indicate that Tuesday was the deadliest day yet in the US, with some 1,939 new fatalities. New York state has been the greatest contributor to the death toll by far, but the new data shows that deaths are also surging in other states.
Another way to look at this. New York daily deaths have been a major component of U.S. deaths, but, at least today, there was a large increase in deaths in the other states and territories.
New Jersey, second in the nation to New York in both cases and fatalities, reported 232 new deaths on Tuesday, according to Governor Phil Murphy, putting its total at 1,232. The state is still well behind New York’s nearly 5,500 fatalities, but with over 3,300 new cases on Tuesday its Covid-19 outbreak is continuing apace.The death toll in Louisiana has also been on a steady rise, seeing its own deadliest day on Tuesday with 70 patients succumbing to the lethal illness, though state officials say they are beginning to see signs that the “curve” of new infections is flattening.
Though President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the US may soon hit the peak of its epidemic, federal authorities are nonetheless scrambling to distribute much-needed medical supplies to the hardest-hit states, with Trump vowing to have some 110,000 mechanical breathing machines ready to hand out in the coming weeks as companies like Ford and General Motors fast track their production.
