US COVID-19 cases top 900,000, deaths touch 52,000

WASHINGTON: More than 900,000 people were infected with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as of Saturday in the United States, with the death toll exceeding 52,000, while a new study indicated that the virus was likely to be spreading in multiple US cities “far earlier” than Americans knew. The number of COVID-19 cases in the country reached 905,364 as of 10.30 a.m. (1430 GMT), and a total of 52,042 deaths related to the disease were recorded, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University, Xinhua news agency reported. The US states and federal government are trying very hard to balance the public health risk posed by the virus with the severe cost of month-odd shutting down of the country’s economy. The Congressional Budget Office said Friday that the unemployment rate around the country, which was near a 50-year low before the coronavirus struck, will surge to 16 per cent by September as the economy withers under the impact of the outbreak. Over a dozen states, including Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, Texas, Colorado and Iowa, are moving toward restarting their economies this weekend with some restrictions. California is moving forward in coordination with Washington and Oregon while governors from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island announced plans to form a joint task force. “Even in early February — while the world focused on China — the virus was not only likely to be spreading in multiple American cities, but also seeding blooms of infection elsewhere in the United States, the researchers found,” said a report by The New York Times on Thursday. The virus spread on the West Coast of the United States weeks earlier than initially believed, according to new information released by Santa Clara county, California on Tuesday. Jeffrey V. Smith, Santa Clara county executive, told Xinhua in an email interview that “so far, this is the earliest death in the United States.” Dowd and another 69-year-old man who died at home on Feb. 17 had no “significant travel history,” and they presumably caught the virus through community spread, said the county’s public health officer Dr. Sara Cody.