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A woman gets a coronavirus swab at a free testing site in Seattle, Washington, on Wednesday. Photo: AP

Coronavirus: US death toll at world record 250,000 after highest daily fatalities in months

  • New York closes public schools as testing positivity hits 3 per cent
  • The Midwest has become the country’s crisis epicentre, reporting almost a half-million cases in a week

The death toll from Covid-19 in the United States passed 250,000 on Wednesday, the day after the country recorded the highest number of victims in nearly four months, a chilling sign for a health care system already struggling to cope.

On Tuesday, the pandemic claimed 1,596 lives in the United States, more than on any single day since July 27.

For weeks, health officials and health care workers have warned that hospitals in all regions could soon become overwhelmed, with widespread community transmission of the virus evident in many places.

“I’m the most concerned I’ve been since this pandemic started,” Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security, told CNN on Wednesday.

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US coronavirus death toll hits record 250,000 after highest daily fatalities in months

US coronavirus death toll hits record 250,000 after highest daily fatalities in months

New York City’s school district, the largest in the United States, will halt in-person learning starting on Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced, the latest major restriction as the nation’s Covid-19 infections soar.

“New York City has reached the 3% testing positivity 7-day average threshold. Unfortunately, this means public school buildings will be closed as of tomorrow, Thursday Nov. 19, out an abundance of caution,” de Blasio wrote on Twitter. “We must fight back the second wave of COVID-19.”

The city joins other large districts in cities like Boston and Detroit that have recently cancelled in-person learning. Within the last week, the Clark County School District, which includes Las Vegas and is the fifth largest in the United States, and Philadelphia’s public school system both postponed plans to return to in-person learning.

The centre of the US Covid-19 epidemic in the spring, New York’s positive test rate dipped dramatically over the summer. But it has been gradually rising again in recent weeks.

In other regions, the rate of new positive cases and hospitalisations has skyrocketed in the last few weeks. Nationwide, the number of patients hospitalised with Covid-19 topped 75,000 on Tuesday, setting a new record.

Coronavirus: the cold, hard challenge of delivering vaccines

The Midwest has become the crisis epicentre in the United States, reporting almost a half-million cases in the week ending on Monday.

Cuyahoga County, which encompasses Ohio’s most populous city, Cleveland, on Wednesday ordered residents to stay at home “to the greatest extent possible” through December 17 in response to “an unprecedented recent surge of severely ill patients requiring hospitalisation” and “concerns with diminished local hospital bed capacity”.

Government officials in at least 18 states, representing both sides of the US political divide, have issued sweeping new public health mandates this month. These range from stricter limits on social gatherings and non-essential businesses to new requirements for wearing masks in public places.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday called the wave of new restrictions an overreach by state and local officials.

“The American people know how to protect their health,” she told Fox News in an interview. “We don’t lose our freedom in this country. We make responsible health decisions as individuals.”

Forty-one US states have reported daily record increases in Covid-19 cases in November, 20 have registered new all-time highs in coronavirus-related deaths from day to day, and 26 have reported new peaks in hospitalisations, according to a Reuters tally of public health data.

Pressure for a fresh Covid-19 relief bill mounted in the US Congress on Wednesday. Senate Democrats also unveiled new legislation to ramp up the national supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care and other front-line workers.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: US death toll climbs past 250,000 mark
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