Still unexplained
The hunt for the origins of Covid-19 has for the past four years been a tangled web of politics, power struggles, and international finger-pointing.
The United States recorded nearly 1,500 deaths from COVID-19 coronavirus between Thursday and Friday, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, the worst 24-hour death toll globally since the pandemic began last December.
With 1,480 deaths counted between 8:30 pm (0030 GMT) Thursday and the same time Friday, according to the university’s continuously updated figures, the total number of people who have died since the start of the pandemic in the United States is now 7,406.
During the same period globally the total number of confirmed cases rose by 83,247 from 1,015 to 1,098, and deaths increased by 5,979 from 53,172 to 59,151.
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The previous record for the most COVID-19 deaths was Italy’s, where 969 people had died of the disease on March 27.
The US also has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world at 277,953.
New York State had the highest number of COVID-19 cases recording a total of 1,03,476 cases on Friday, an increase of 10,423 from Thursday, while other states with over 10,000 cases include New Jersey, California, and Michigan.
China, where the pandemic began and is now ebbing, reported a total of only 3,322 deaths from COVID-19 on Friday, showing an increase of only 4.
As the death toll crossed 7000, US President Donald Trump announced new guidelines on Friday recommending that Americans wear face coverings while in public to battle the spread of the coronavirus pandemic but made it clear that he is “choosing not to do it”.
President Trump had on Tuesday warned of a “very painful” two weeks as the United States wrestles with a Coronavirus surge that the White House warns could kill as many as 240,000 Americans.
Top health experts have said that the decision to maintain strict social distancing was the only way to stop the easily transmitted virus, even if this has caused massive disruption to the economy with three quarters of Americans under some form of lockdown.
(With agency inputs)
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