U.S. COVID-19 cases exceed 600,000, economic reopening under heated discussion

U.S. COVID-19 cases rose above 600,000 with over 25,000 deaths as of Tuesday as the debate over reopening the economy has heated up.

The country saw 602,989 infections with 25,575 deaths by 6:50 p.m. (2250 GMT), according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

The hardest-hit state, New York, saw 202,630 infections and a death toll of 10,834, followed by New Jersey with 68,824 infections and 2,805 deaths. Other states with over 20,000 infections include Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois and Louisiana.

Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 1.98 million people and killed at least 125,000.

PEAK ARRIVING?

“We might well be at a point in time when the number of new cases in the United States will be peaking, and beginning to decline in the country overall,” said Robert Schooley, a professor of medicine at the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego.

“Having said that, there are still a number of cities and states in which cases are still rising quickly and will likely do so for several more weeks,” Schooley told Xinhua. “These include places like Texas, Florida and Georgia whose governors were slow in introducing epidemic control measures.”

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that there are “indications” that some of the metrics used to gauge the crisis “are starting to level off” in some areas.

According to the COVID-19 model projection done by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, the nation’s deaths per day peaked on April 13 at 2,150, while COVID-19 patients per day peaked on April 10 with 56,831 beds needed on that single day.

“The data shows that the confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country doubled every two to three days in late March. And now the doubling time extended to every 10 days. It reveals that the growth rate started to decline, and the social distancing measures have achieved good results,” Zhang Zuofeng, a professor of epidemiology, who is also the associate dean for research at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Xinhua.

Considering hospitalization rates, intensive care unit treatment rates and death rates as the “most reliable indicators” in the course of the epidemic in a given location, Schooley said that these numbers seem to be peaking in hot spots like New York, and hopefully they now start dropping rapidly.

President Donald Trump announced in late March that the national social distancing guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 will be extended to April 30, changing his plan to reopen the country by Easter, which fell on April 12.

REOPENING ECONOMY?

However, pressure is mounting for the White House to reopen the U.S. economy as a staggering 16.8 million Americans have filed initial jobless claims in a three-week period ending April 4th.

During Tuesday’s briefing on the epidemic in the White House, Trump said that he intended to talk with all 50 governors this week, probably on Thursday, to discuss a national plan for reopening the country.

Trump said that he might try to authorize reopening some states before May 1, within the federally recommended time horizon for social distancing and other mitigation measures.

Groups of big East Coast and West Coast states announced on Monday they would decide by regional consensus about how to approach their strategies for normalcy given how closely they are connected by metropolitan areas, transit and interdependent economies.

Fauci, the country’s leading expert on infectious disease, is among the experts who have warned that the United States is not ready to restart its economy.

“We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on, and we’re not there yet,” Fauci told the media.

“We will have to continue the distancing policies in places where the epidemic may be peaking as we prepare for new surges in which distancing was late. We are, unfortunately, far from out of danger,” Schooley said.

Zhang said that the ideal condition for reopening business in a state is that there are no new confirmed cases for 14 consecutive days. However, no state can meet the criterion by May 1, he added.

It is unlikely to have full reopening of business nationwide by May 1, but it is feasible to first reopen some states which were not heavily hit and some industries such as medical supplies and protective equipment, Zhang said.

WORST RECESSION

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday the global economy is on track to contract “sharply” by 3 percent in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic…

Source: Xinhua