UPDATED with latest: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control said Friday that the total number of coronavirus cases in the country has grown to 85,356, up from 68,440 a day earlier, with the death toll nationwide growing by more than 250 overnight to 1,246. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization reports that the global death toll from COVID-19 has passed 23,000.
The numbers have been growing steadily in the U.S. since President Donald Trump declared the pandemic a national emergency 14 days ago and more states have been issuing stay-at-home orders. The illness has now passed 509,000 confirmed cases and killed 23,335 worldwide, according to WHO data.
According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the global total of coronavirus cases passed 586,000 on Friday.
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Last week, Trump said the crisis may not be brought under control nationally until July or August or even later, while this week he raised eyebrows suggesting Easter might be a target date to lift social distancing restrictions. That suggestion came as hospitals nationwide are beginning to see a wave of patients with COVID-19 symptoms pouring in.
New York is the most impacted state, adding about 7,300 confirmed cases in the past 24 hours to reach 44,635 as of Friday afternoon, according to the New York State Department of Health, and a reported 366 deaths per Johns Hopkins data. New York City alone has 25,398 cases.
Washington state, the original tip of the COVID-19 spear in the U.S., has spiked to 3,207 confirmed cases and 147 deaths as of Friday, with 109 deaths in Seattle’s King County. In California, the state department of health as of Thursday afternoon reported 3,006 positive cases and 65 deaths. Twelve states now have more than 1,000 confirmed cases.
According to the Johns Hopkins data, the U.S. now has the most active coronavirus cases worldwide eclipsing Italy and China. The Johns Hopkins numbers, which have been tracking higher than the official CDC and WHO numbers, is reporting 586,000 cases of COVID-19 worldwide and more than 26,800 deaths as of Friday afternoon. It reports that 130,000 people have recovered after coming down with the illness.
Italy, Spain and Germany continue to have the most cases among Eurpoean countries, with Italy topping 80,000 cases overall on Friday, second only to China. It has reported 8,165 total deaths as of Friday, according to the WHO. It now has almost 5,000 more deaths than China, where the pandemic began in late December.
“The pandemic is accelerating,” WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a news conference earlier this week. “It took 67 days from the first reported case to reach the first 100,000 cases, 11 days for the second 100,000 cases, and just four days for the third 100,000 cases. You can see how the virus is accelerating.
‘But we’re not prisoners to statistics,” he said, urging “political commitment and political coordination at the global level.” He added: “We’re not helpless bystanders. We can change the trajectory of this pandemic.”
The WHO officially declared coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, though Tedros stressed that it “can be controlled.”
He has called on countries to take a four-pronged strategy: 1) prepare and be ready; 2) detect, prevent and treat; 3) reduce and suppress; and 4) innovate and improve. That has led to much more restrictive policies worldwide.
“This is a new virus and a new situation,” he said. “We’re all learning and we must all find new ways to prevent infections, save lives, and minimize impact. All countries have lessons to share.”
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