The United States recorded 1,169 COVID-19 fatalities in a single day,
the Johns Hopkins University tracker showed Thursday, the highest
one-day death toll recorded in any country since the global pandemic
began. The toll reflected figures reported by the university between 8:30pm Wednesday (0030 GMT) and the same time Thursday.
The grim record was previously held by Italy, where 969 people died on March 27.
The US has now recorded around 6000 coronavirus deaths since the pandemic began. Trump changes his position on masksUS
President Donald Trump's administration appeared to join local
officials on Thursday in advising Americans to wear masks when venturing
out during the still-exploding coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking at
a White House briefing, Deborah Birx, a member of Trump's coronavirus
task force, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would
issue guidelines in the coming days on the use of face coverings.
Birx
however cautioned that Americans, who have been admonished to stay at
home except for essential outings, should not develop a "false sense of
security" that they are fully protected from the respiratory illness by
wearing a mask.
Trump, answering questions from reporters at the same briefing, said only that "if people want to wear them, they can."
Lack of resources
In
New York City, the center of the US outbreak, Mayor Bill de Blasio
urged residents to wear face coverings, citing studies showing that the
virus can be transmitted by infected people who are showing no symptoms."What
that means is when you put on that face covering you're protecting
everyone else," de Blasio said. The Democratic mayor suggested New
Yorkers use scarves or other home-made masks because medical-grade
protective gear was in short supply.
An emergency stockpile of
medical equipment maintained by the US government has nearly run out of
protective garb for doctors and nurses.
In New York City, where
at least 1,400 people have been killed by the virus, hospitals and
morgues struggled to treat the desperately ill and bury the dead.
New
York City funeral homes and cemetery directors described a surge in
demand not seen in decades as cases surpassed 50,000 in the city.
Crematories
extended their hours and burned bodies into the night, with corpses
piling up so quickly that city officials were looking elsewhere in the
state for temporary interment sites.
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