Tag Archives: New York

U.S. stay-at-home frustration spreads; coronavirus-battered New York says may be past the worst

By Maria Caspani and Nathan Layne

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Demonstrations to demand an end to stay-at-home measures that have pummelled the U.S. economy spread to Texas on Saturday as the governor at the epicentre of the U.S. coronavirus crisis said his state of New York may finally be past the worst.

New York, which has recorded nearly half the country’s deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the highly infectious virus, on Saturday reported 540 coronavirus-related deaths for April 17, down from 630 a day earlier and the lowest daily tally since April 1.

The number of patients in the state requiring intensive care and ventilators to help them breathe was also down.

“If you look at the past three days, you could argue that we are past the plateau and we’re starting to descend, which would be very good news,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in his daily briefing.

Some 2,000 people were still being hospitalized with COVID-19 every day, Cuomo said, and he noted 36 of the latest New York deaths occurred at nursing homes, which have been ravaged by the pandemic nationwide.

In neighboring New Jersey, both the number of new hospitalizations and new coronavirus cases were also slightly down from the day before, Governor Phil Murphy said. But he added: “We are not out of the woods, we have not yet plateaued.”

Illinois reported 125 new coronavirus deaths and an additional 1,585 cases but said the growth rate was slowing.

Murphy said he had a “concerning” call with Senate minority leader and fellow Democrat Chuck Schumer, who told him there was no momentum in the U.S. Congress for direct aid to states whose economies were suffering from the stay-at-home orders aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

Without federal aid, the state will see “historic” layoffs, he said.

More than 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the past month as closures of businesses and schools and severe travel restrictions have hammered the economy.

But an influential research model said late on Friday the strict adherence to the orders imposed in 42 of the 50 U.S. states was a key factor behind an improved outlook for the country’s coronavirus death toll.

The University of Washington’s predictive model, regularly updated and often cited by state public health authorities and White House officials, projected the virus would take 60,308 U.S. lives by Aug. 4, down 12% from a forecast earlier in the week.

The model predicted some states may be able to begin safely easing restrictions as early as May 4.

PUSHBACK

Many have already started pushing back against the measures.

Governor Murphy chastised an official in Atlantic County, home to Atlantic City, for expressing frustration in a Facebook post over the effect of the closures on the casino-dependent local economy. County surrogate Jim Curcio said his comments were his personal opinion.

“I’ve lived here all my life and when we go into a recession here we seem to be the last to come out of it and people suffer terribly and the most vulnerable suffer the most,” Curcio told Reuters on Saturday. “What is happening to the private sector is my breaking my heart.”

On Saturday, several dozen protesters gathered in the Texas capital of Austin chanting “USA! USA!” and “Let us work!”

In Brookfield, Wisconsin, hundreds of demonstrators cheered as they lined a main road and waved American flags to protest at the extension of that state’s “safer at home” order.

Earlier in the week, scattered protests erupted in the capitols of Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia. The demonstrators mostly flouted the social-distancing rules and did not wear the face masks recommended by public health officials.

As of Friday night, New York has mandated the statewide wearing of masks for anyone out in public and unable to practice social distancing.

Republican President Donald Trump appeared to encourage protesters with a series of Twitter posts on Friday calling for them to “LIBERATE” Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia, all run by Democratic governors.

Trump had touted a thriving economy as the best case for his re-election in November.

Several states, including Ohio, Michigan, Texas and Florida, have said they aim to reopen parts of their economies, perhaps by May 1 or even sooner, but appeared to be staying cautious.

Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis reopened some beaches with restrictions from Friday evening, but also said on Saturday that schools will remain closed and continue distance learning the rest of this school year.

Fellow Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas has also extended school closures to the end of the academic year.

Health experts say that to avoid a second wave of infections as people return to work, extensive testing must be available to track infections, as well as contact tracing and antibody testing to learn who had been previously infected and might have some immunity.

Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday the United States had the capacity to do a sufficient amount of testing for states to move into a phase one of reopening.

Governors and state health officials say there is nowhere near enough test kits and equipment available, however.

The United States has by far the world’s largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 720,000 infections and over 37,000 deaths.

The handful of states that did not issue stay-at-home orders have all seen significant surges in new cases.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut, Maria Caspani in New York, Jennifer Hiller in Houston and Idrees Ali in Washington; Writing by Bill Berkrot and Sonya Hepinstall; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

U.S. coronavirus death toll tops 30,000, New Yorkers told to wear masks

By Maria Caspani and Doina Chiacu

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. coronavirus death toll – the highest in the world – surged past 30,000 on Wednesday after doubling in a week, while the hardest-hit state of New York ordered residents to wear masks in certain settings to combat the pandemic.

The sobering milestone was reached at a time when states spared the worst of the pandemic were mulling a partial lifting of restrictions on business and social life by May 1, a target date promoted by President Donald Trump.

The goal of getting the country back to work took on more urgency with the release of two government reports showing plummeting retail sales and factory output last month.

U.S. deaths on Wednesday stood at 30,400, according to a Reuters tally, with 630,000 confirmed coronavirus cases. After the first U.S. death, reported on Feb. 29, it took 38 days to reach 10,000 deaths and nine days to jump from 10,000 fatalities to 30,000.

A University of Washington model, often cited by the White House, this week predicted the total U.S. deaths in the pandemic could reach about 68,800 by early August. That suggests the United States has not even reached the halfway point in possible fatalities.

Italy, with more than 21,000, has the second-most reported deaths caused by the pathogen that first emerged last year in China, followed by Spain with more than 18,500. Worldwide, the pathogen has killed at least 133,000 people.

After saying earlier this week that New York had passed the worst of the crisis, Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday ordered his state’s 19 million residents to wear masks or substitutes when in any public situation that may not allow them to be at least six feet away from others. New Yorkers will have three days to comply with the order, aimed at ensuring the mask wearer does not infect others.

Cuomo said 752 people died in his state in the past day – down slightly from the previous day but still high, although hospitalizations declined in a sign the crisis was easing.

“If you are going to be in public and you cannot maintain social distancing then have a mask, and put that mask on,” Cuomo told a news briefing.

New York is following the lead of a few places that already have policies regarding face coverings in certain circumstances, including Los Angeles. Health experts have recommended the use of face masks after initially discouraging the public from wearing them, out of concern over a short supply for medical professionals treating coronavirus patients.

Cuomo also gave an outline of how he would begin to reopen businesses, starting with the most essential and those where the risk of infection spread was smallest.

With evidence that the outbreak is slowing in states like New York, political leaders have engaged in an acrimonious debate over when to try to reopen the economy without paving the way for a deadly second wave of infections.

States and local governments have issued “stay-at-home” or “shelter-in-place” orders affecting about 94% of Americans to curb the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.

ECONOMIC CALAMITY

The restrictions have battered the U.S. economy, with mandatory business closures aimed at curbing the pathogen’s spread leaving millions of Americans unemployed.

Fresh government data released on Wednesday gave another glimpse at the damage. Retail sales dropped by 8.7% in March, the government reported, the biggest decline since tracking began in 1992. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

In addition, output at U.S. factories declined by the most since 1946 as the pandemic fractured supply chains.

Economists believe the economy entered recession in March.

“The economy is almost in free fall,” said Sung Won Sohn, a business economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Trump, who initially downplayed the coronavirus threat and then called for a reopening of the economy by April 12, now has embraced May 1 target date.

“There are a number of states – 19, 20 states – that really have had limited impact from it. So I think we will see some states that are – the governors feel that they’re ready – we’re poised to assist them with that reopening,” Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Healthcare workers have faced unique health threats while working on the front lines trying to tackle the pandemic. Reuters has identified more than 50 nurses, doctors and medical technicians who have died after being diagnosed with COVID-19 or showing symptoms of it. At least 16 were in New York state.

“The emergency room is like a war zone,” said Raj Aya, whose wife Madhvi Aya – a physician’s assistant in Brooklyn – was one of the healthcare workers who died in New York.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne, Lucia Mutikani, Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey, Maria Caspani, Lisa Shumaker, Gabriella Borter, Peter Szekely, Kristina Cooke and Jessica Resnick-Ault; Writing by Will Dunham and Maria Caspani; Editing by Frank McGurty, Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)

With cheers, New York nurses greet reinforcements from across the U.S.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – With loud cheers and applause, medical staff at New York’s Northwell Health network greeted 46 nurses on Tuesday who had arrived from all over the United States to reinforce hospitals as they battle the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus topped 24,000 on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally. There were nearly 583,000 confirmed cases, over 200,000 of which were in New York state alone.

Treating the large number of patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has challenged hospitals in its U.S. epicenter. They have scrambled to find enough ventilators and other equipment, as well as beds and staff.

Northwell, the largest healthcare provider in New York, said it had contracted medical staffing companies to help it buttress efforts to treat patients at 18 hospitals across New York City, Long Island and Westchester county.

The “clap-in,” with dozens of staff cheering loudly and holding signs saying “Nurses are the heart of healthcare” and “Welcome, healthcare heroes,” was a surprise for the nurses who arrived on Tuesday afternoon for a half-day training session. Hailing from states including California, South Carolina, and Indiana, they are undergoing training in subjects ranging from operating ventilators to dealing with electronic medical records.

“It’s so heartwarming to see so many nurses come from so far away to assist us in our time of need,” said Maureen White, executive vice president and chief nurse executive at Northwell.

About 300 nurses from other areas have been enlisted over the past three weeks, said Launette Woolforde, Northwell’s registered nurse and vice president for nursing education.

Marybella Cole, who had arrived in New York from Lewiston, Idaho, said community was important to her.

“There’s no bigger calling than something like this,” she said.

Raymond Woods said he had left kids and grandchildren behind in Indiana so he could help.

“I have never been more proud to be a nurse. This is by far the most rewarding career I’ve had in my life,” he said.

(Reporting by Andrew Hofstetter; Writing by Bernadette Baum; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Six U.S. states to coordinate gradual reopening after coronavirus shutdown

By Maria Caspani and Jessica Resnick-Ault

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Six states in the U.S. Northeast took the first tentative step on Monday toward reopening their economies by forming a regional panel to develop a strategy for the gradual lifting of restrictions aimed at stanching the coronavirus pandemic.

The announcement of the panel, to include economic and health officials from each state as well as the chief of staff of all six governors, came after President Donald Trump insisted that any decision on restarting the economy was his to make.

The states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, with a total population of 32 million, will join with neighboring Delaware, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island in coordinating their efforts to reopen the economy as more signs the outbreak has stabilized emerged over the weekend.

The joint planning reflected growing concern among health officials and political leaders that easing stay-at-home orders too soon could allow the pandemic to re-accelerate, undoing hard-won progress the country has made in recent weeks.

“Nobody has been here before, nobody has all the answers,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said during an open conference call with his five counterparts. “Addressing public health and the economy: which one is first? They’re both first.”

Cuomo said earlier on Monday that reopening “is a delicate balance” that involved “recalibrating” which businesses and activities are essential.

The number of deaths reported in the United States overall on Sunday was 1,513, the smallest increase since April 6. The largest number of fatalities is still in and around New York City, the most populous U.S. city with about 8.4 million people.

Tensions between state governors and U.S. President Donald Trump have bubbled up since the outbreak worsened a month ago and surfaced in the debate about when and how to restart economic activity.

“It is the decision of the president, and for many good reasons,” Trump said on Twitter on Monday. He went on to write that his administration was working closely with the governors.

“A decision by me, in conjunction with the governors and input from others, will be made shortly!” Trump’s tweet said.

Legal experts say a U.S. president has limited power under the U.S. Constitution to order citizens back to their places of employment, or cities to reopen government buildings, transportation, or local businesses to reopen.

‘WORST IS OVER’ BUT…

Cuomo said on Monday that “the worst is over” for his state, the U.S. epicenter of the virus, but he hedged his remark with a warning that gains achieved through social distancing could be undone if “we do something stupid” and relax those restrictions too quickly.

“We can control the spread. Feel good about that,” Cuomo said. “The worst is over, if we continue to be smart going forward.”

Political leaders said a reopening of the economy may hinge on more widespread testing and cautioned that lifting of stay-at-home restrictions too early could reignite the outbreak. The Trump administration has signaled May 1 as a potential date for easing the restrictions.

The United States, with the world’s third-largest population, has recorded more fatalities from COVID-19 than any other country, with more than 23,000 deaths as of Monday morning, according to a Reuters tally.

Wyoming reported its first death from the coronavirus on Monday, the final U.S. state to report a fatality.

Official statistics, which exclude deaths outside of hospitals, have understated the actual number of people who have succumbed to COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, health experts said. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T)

More than 10,000 people have died in New York state, and the death rate was “basically flat at an horrific level of pain and sorrow,” Cuomo said, referring to a flattening of the curve as seen on a graph.

In New York City, three indicators have to show a sustained decline before the city could consider the outbreak to be in a less dangerous phase, Mayor Bill de Blasio said: the daily number of people admitted to hospitals, the number of people in intensive care units, and the percentage of positive tests for the virus.

New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot acknowledged a “tightening” of the supply chain for swabs needed in coronavirus testing, and said it was part of a “national and international challenge” to ramp up testing.

Chris Sununu, the Republican governor of New Hampshire, said testing for the coronavirus had improved “but we don’t have enough. Nobody has enough.”

“There’s just a limited supply for a massive amount of demand,” Sununu told CNN.

To ease the impact of the shutdown on the U.S. economy, the two top Democrats in the U.S. Congress urged Republicans on Monday to authorize more funding for national testing. An effort to rush fresh assistance to U.S. small businesses stalled in Congress as the health emergency failed to overcome partisan differences between Republicans and Democrats.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani Jessica Resnick-Ault; additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Lisa Lambert in Washington and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Writing by Grant McCool; Editing by Frank McGurty and Howard Goller)

Coronavirus forces Americans to find Easter fun at least 6 feet apart

By Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Easter is a special holiday for 6-year-old Nora Heddendorf. It’s a day when she loves to get dolled up in a fancy dress and shiny shoes, and have fun with family and friends hunting for brightly colored eggs.

This year the coronavirus pandemic has forced her to adapt. She will accessorize her Easter outfit with a white paper mask, blue disposable gloves, and a container of disinfectant wipes. And after hearing that her New Jersey town’s annual egg hunt may be canceled, she came up with the idea of a “rock hunt.”

Nora’s hunt not only substitutes brightly painted stones for eggs, which are in short supply at some stores, but it also allows her neighbors to do their hunting during their social-distancing walks.

“I was sad it was going to be canceled because of the virus,” the kindergartener told Reuters in a phone interview. “I want to make people happy.”

From the White House to small town parks, the pandemic has forced the cancellation of traditional Easter egg hunts and “rolls” across the United States, closed churches, and scotched plans for Easter meals with extended families.

But many Americans are still finding ways to have holiday fun, from an Oregon candymaker making chocolate bunnies wearing face masks to a Texas church organizing a virtual egg hunt using the video game Minecraft.

Weeks ago, Nora and her mother started organizing her hunt in their town of Medford Lakes. She assembled dozens of DIY kits, each containing five rocks, four paint colors, and instructions, all wrapped in a plastic bag. Of course, she wore disposable gloves and sprayed the contents with disinfectant.

She then left the kits outside her home for pick-up by people who want to participate. On her Facebook page, Nora’s Rocks, the young artist urged her community to return decorated rocks to her to hide.

“Thank you for helping Nora’s Rocks bring our town together while staying apart,” said the instruction letter she included in the kits.

Her mother, Samantha Heddendorf, president of an environmental cleanup company that has been decontaminating buildings affected by the coronavirus crisis, said the hunt will start on Good Friday and continue through Easter Sunday, with fresh batches of painted rocks hidden each day.

The goal is to place 500 stone “eggs” in every nook and cranny of the 1 square mile (2.6 square km) town.

“When people are doing their social distancing walks, they can look for rocks – or so-called Easter Eggs. They can have something to hunt for and pick them up and at least have a smile to celebrate Easter with,” Samantha Heddendorf said.

In Central Point, Oregon, chocolatier Jeff Shepherd had a brainstorm to save his Lillie Belle Farms from shutdown in the wake of the coronavirus. He told his Facebook followers that he would make “Covid Bunnies” – milk and dark chocolate ones with white face masks and white chocolate ones with blue face masks.

Six-year-old Nora Heddendorf displays her do-it-yourself kits for a painted rock hunt she and her mother are organizing in their town of Medford Lakes, New Jersey, U.S., March 28, 2020 amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. Samantha Heddendorf/Handout via REUTERS

It was an instant hit. Shepherd was able to hire back the seven full-time staff he had laid off, has sold 5,000 bunnies, and is scrambling with back orders, now limiting purchases to six per customer.

Safe distancing to thwart virus spread is what convinced the Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, to go digital with its Easter Egg hunt, using Minecraft but disabling potentially scary game elements like monsters.

“Our ultimate goal is to spread the gospel, but we want the kids to still enjoy Easter,” said Reverend Curtis James.

Back in New Jersey, Nora was excited that her idea was warmly embraced by so many, with the town mayor stopping by to witness her stuffing the kits and the local Lions Club inviting her for lunch “when this whole thing is over.”

Her favorite “thank you” was gift-wrapped rolls of toilet paper, one of the staples – including eggs – being hoarded by people panic buying during the pandemic.

“My mom smiled when the toilet paper came,” Nora said.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

U.S. coronavirus expert Fauci: ‘Now is no time to back off’

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top U.S. infectious disease expert warned on Friday that even though hard-hit spots like New York are showing positive results in the battle against the coronavirus, it is too early to relax restrictions on Americans.

The warning from Dr. Anthony Fauci came as President Donald Trump administration’s top economic officials said on Thursday they believe the U.S. economy could start to reopen for normal business in May, despite health experts’ urging to continue social distancing to defeat the coronavirus.

Trump, a Republican seeking re-election on Nov. 3, has made clear he wants to get the economy going as soon as possible.

“Hopefully we’re going to be opening up… very, very, very, very soon, I hope,” he said on Thursday at the White House’s daily coronavirus briefing.

Fauci warned against relaxing restrictions too soon.

“What we’re seeing right now are some favorable signs,” Fauci said in an interview on CNN, citing progress in hard-hit New York.

Before moving to reopen society, he added: “We would want to see a clear indication that you were very, very clearly and strongly going in the right direction. Because the one thing you don’t want to do is you don’t want to get out there prematurely and you wind up back in the same situation.”

In New York, authorities said on Thursday the number of newly hospitalized patients in dropped for a second day, to 200, even though the number of coronavirus-related deaths in the state rose by 799 on Wednesday.

“You can’t relax,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

With many Americans celebrating the Easter holiday on Sunday, Fauci said it was important to keep social distancing measures in place.

“Now is no time to back off,” Fauci said.

Members of the coronavirus task force look at data every day for indications “we can go forward in a gradual way to essentially reopening the country,” Fauci said, and report back to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. “That decision will be made at that level,” he said.

 

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Speed of coronavirus deaths shock doctors as New York toll hits new high

By Nick Brown and Gabriella Borter

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York state, epicenter of America’s coronavirus crisis, set another single-day record of COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, as veteran doctors and nurses voiced astonishment at the speed with which patients were deteriorating and dying.

The number of known coronavirus infections in New York state alone approached 150,000 on Wednesday, even as authorities warned that the official death tally may understate the true number because it omits those who have perished at home.

“Every number is a face, ” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ordered flags flown at half-staff across New York in memory of the victims.

“This virus attacked the vulnerable and attacked the weak, and it’s our job as a society to protect the vulnerable.”

Doctors and nurses say elderly patients and those with underlying health conditions are not the only ones who appear relatively well one moment and at death’s door the next. It happens to the young and healthy, too.

Patients “look fine, feel fine, then you turn around and they’re unresponsive,” said Diana Torres, a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, the center of the nation’s worst outbreak. “I’m paranoid, scared to walk out of their room.”

Nearly 430,000 cases of COVID-19, the highly infectious lung disease caused by the coronavirus, were confirmed in the United States as of Wednesday afternoon, including more than 14,700 deaths. For the second straight day the virus killed at least 1,900 in a 24-hour period.

Cuomo said 779 people had died in the past day in his state. New Jersey reported 275 had died there. Both totals exceeded one-day records from just a day earlier.

Despite the grim figures, Cuomo said overall trends still appeared positive. Cuomo cited a drop in new hospitalizations and other data as evidence that New York’s social-distancing restrictions were “bending the curve,” helping to gain some control over the infection rate.

New York is one of 42 states where governors have issued “stay-at-home” orders and closed all non-essential workplaces.

While public health experts say such measures are vital for controlling the contagion, the restrictions have strangled the U.S. economy, leading to widespread layoffs, upheavals on Wall Street and projections of a severe recession.

Cuomo said the loss of life would likely continue at current levels or increase in days ahead as critically ill patients die after prolonged bouts hooked up to ventilators.

SCALING BACK TOLL

U.S. deaths due to coronavirus topped 14,700 on Wednesday, the second highest reported number in the world behind Italy, according to a Reuters tally.

New York state accounts for over a third of the U.S. total.

Officials have warned Americans to expect alarming numbers of coronavirus deaths this week, even as an influential university model on Wednesday scaled back its projected U.S. pandemic death toll by 26% to 60,000.

“We are in the midst of a week of heartache,” Vice President Mike Pence said during a White House briefing on Wednesday, but added, “we are beginning to see glimmers of hope.”

Dr. Craig Smith, surgeon-in-chief at Presbyterian Hospital’s Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan, heralded encouraging numbers that suggested a turning tide in Wednesday’s edition of his daily newsletter to staff.

There were more discharges of patients than admissions for two days running, he said, adding: “Hosanna!”

But that comes as cold comfort to some healthcare workers on the front lines, who told Reuters they have treated patients while experiencing symptoms of the novel coronavirus themselves without being able to get tested.

In Michigan, one of the few hospital systems conducting widespread diagnostic screenings of staff, found more than 700 workers were infected – over a quarter of those tested.

The continued test kit shortages – even for the workers most at risk – is “scandalous” and a serious threat to the patients they treat, said Dr. Art Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

‘BIG BANG’

At the White House on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would like to reopen the U.S. economy with a “big bang” but not before the death toll is on the downslope.

Trump did not offer a time frame, but his chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said on Tuesday a resumption of commerce was possible in four to eight weeks.

Louisiana is “beginning to see the flattening of the curve” with the number of new coronavirus cases reported in the past 24 hours – 746 – lower than recent days, Governor John Bel Edwards said. Louisiana had been one of the nation’s hot spots.

California, like New York, had one of its highest single-day death tolls with 68 people dying of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, Governor Gavin Newsom said. The state may not see its infection curve flattening until the end of May, requiring weeks more of social distancing, officials say.

New York City officials said a recent surge in people dying at home suggests the most populous U.S. city may be undercounting the loss of life.

“I think that’s a very real possibility,” Cuomo told his daily news briefing.

So far New York City’s announced death toll has reflected only laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses, mostly at hospitals. At least 200 people are believed to be dying at home in the city every day during the pandemic, authorities said.

Pence warned that Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were cities of “particular concern” as a possible future flash points in the epidemic.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely, Nick Brown, Jonathan Allen, Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey, Maria Caspani, Brad Brooks, Susan Cornwell, Nathan Layne, Lisa Lambert, Stephanie Kelly, and Gabriella Borter; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Will Dunham and Bill Tarrant; Editing by Bill Berkrot, Cynthia Osterman and Michael Perry)

New York, New Jersey report record coronavirus deaths, U.S. cases reach 417,000

By Peter Szekely and Maria Caspani

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The number of coronavirus cases in New York state alone approached 150,000 on Wednesday, surpassing Spain for the most infections anywhere in the world, even as authorities warned the state’s official death tally may understate the true toll.

New York and neighboring New Jersey on Wednesday again reported new single-day highs for coronavirus deaths.

New York state has 149,316 reported cases compared to Spain’s 146,690, according to a Reuters tally. In total, the United States has recorded more than 417,000 coronavirus cases and 14,100 deaths.

New York officials said a recent surge in the number of people dying at home suggests that the most populous U.S. city may be undercounting how many people have died of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus.

“I think that’s a very real possibility,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in his daily news briefing.

Cuomo said 779 people died from the coronavirus in the past day in his state and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said another 275 had died there. Both totals exceeded one-day records reported just a day earlier.

Despite the grim tally, Cuomo said overall trends still appear positive, with the rate of hospitalizations down in the state at the epicenter of the U.S. epidemic.

“Every number is a face, right,” Cuomo said of the death statistics. “This virus attacked the vulnerable and attacked the weak and it’s our job as a society to protect the vulnerable.”

Murphy tightened New Jersey’s social-distancing requirements, ordering retailers including grocery stores still allowed to operate to limit customers, ensure that customers and employees wear face coverings and regularly sanitize the premises.

“We need to continue to be absolutely vigilant and, if anything tighten, as opposed to loosen,” Murphy said of coronavirus-related restrictions on residents. “And I don’t say that with any joy.”

Louisiana announced 70 more deaths in the past day, matching that state’s single-day record announced a day earlier.

President Donald Trump’s administration has called for 30 days of measures, including staying at least six feet (1.8 meters) away from other people, that have upended American life, with most people staying isolated at home, schools and businesses closed and millions losing their jobs. Some 94% of the U.S. population has been ordered to stay at home.

“What’s really important is that people don’t turn these early signs of hope into releasing from the 30 days to stop the spread – it’s really critical,” said Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force.

“If people start going out again and socially interacting, we could see a really acute second wave” of infections, Birx added.

DEATH TOLL PROJECTIONS

The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model lowered its projected U.S. death toll by 26%, to 60,000 from 80,000 by August 4. The model is one of several that the White House task force has cited.

The task force previously projected 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die.

The institute also moved up its projected peak in the number to U.S. deaths to this Sunday, when it predicted 2,212 people will succumb to the disease. The revision moves forward the projected peak by four days, suggesting the strain on the country’s healthcare system will lessen sooner than previously expected.

New York Mayor Bill De Blasio estimated an undercount in the death toll of 100 to 200 people per day who are dying at home but excluded from the city’s rapidly growing tally. So far the city’s announced death toll has reflected only COVID-19 diagnoses confirmed in a laboratory.

More than 200 people are dying at home in New York City each day during the pandemic, up from 22 to 32 during the March 20 to April 5 period a year ago, according to city fire officials.

The city will now try to quantify how many of those died from coronavirus-related causes and add that to the its official death toll, New York’s health department said.

“People are dying outside the hospital, unfortunately. It happens every day,” Oren Barzilay, the president of a labor union representing city paramedics, said. “I think those numbers, those statistics in New York for deaths would significantly go up if they tested everyone that expired.”

Authorities in various states have disclosed data showing the health crisis having a disproportionate impact on African Americans, reflecting longstanding racial inequities in health outcomes in the United States.

De Blasio said there were “clear inequalities” in how the coronavirus is affecting his city’s population, though the disparities have been less pronounced than in some other jurisdictions. Data released on Wednesday showed Hispanic residents dying at more than twice the rate as non-Hispanic white people and slightly outpacing the death rate of African Americans in the city.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely, Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey, Maria Caspani, Brad Brooks, Nathan Layne, Lisa Lambert, Stephanie Kelly, and Gabriella Borter; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Will Dunham; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Bill Berkrot)

New York suffers deadliest day in coronavirus crisis

By Nathan Layne and Maria Caspani

(Reuters) – New York has suffered its deadliest day in the novel coronavirus pandemic, with 731 fatalities in the last 24 hours, although Governor Andrew Cuomo said hospitalizations were reaching a plateau in a promising sign for the hardest-hit state.

Even as the total number of deaths reached 5,489 across New York, Cuomo told a daily briefing on Tuesday that he was working with governors in New Jersey and Connecticut on a plan to restart life once the crisis subsides.

Cuomo said that the closures of businesses and schools and other social distancing measures were having the intended impact and urged continued compliance, especially as New York City braces for the possible peak to hospitalizations this week.

“Our behavior affects the number of cases,” said Cuomo. “They are not descending on us from heaven.”

The 731 new deaths on Monday marked an increase from the prior day’s 599 new deaths, while new hospitalizations nearly doubled to 656, contradicting a trend of the past few days which Cuomo had touted as a possible “flattening of the curve”.

But Cuomo cautioned against reading too much into one day of data and stressed three-day averages, which still showed a downward trend in the stress on the state’s hospitals. The governor also pointed to a daily drop in admissions to intensive care units and a fall in intubations as encouraging signs.

Cuomo said health officials have developed an antibody testing regimen that was approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for use in the state, and said that regulators were working to bring it up to scale.

The test, Cuomo said, would determine whether a person has developed antibodies from contracting and resolving the virus, and would be part of a larger plan aimed at getting people back to work and to school.

“That’s why you would have the antibodies for the virus – that would mean that you are no longer contagious, and you can’t catch the virus because you have the antibodies in your system,” the governor said.

“You are not going to end the virus before you start restating life.”

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Maria Caspani and Stephanie Kelly in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

U.S. health officials say death toll may fall short of most dire projections

By Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two senior U.S. health officials have said they now believe the coronavirus outbreak may kill fewer Americans than some recent projections, pointing to tentative signs that the death toll was starting to level off in New York and other hot spots.

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Tuesday said he concurred with the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that some research models have projected death totals that may prove too high, though neither would offer an alternate estimate.

The White House coronavirus task force projected a death toll of 100,000 to 240,000 a week ago, saying containing deaths to that range was possible if strict social distances measures were respected, implying it could go even higher.

Adams on Tuesday told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that he was encouraged by recent data showing a possible “flattening” of the outbreak in some areas, referring to the shape of the curve when deaths are shown on a graph.

Asked if he believed the death toll would come in below the dire White House task force projection, Adams said, “That’s absolutely my expectation.”

“I feel a lot more optimistic, again, because I’m seeing mitigation work,” he said, adding that he agreed with CDC director Robert Redfield that deaths could fall short of totals that some computer models showed.

The governors of New York, New Jersey and Louisiana pointed to tentative signs on Monday that the coronavirus outbreak may be starting to plateau but warned against complacency.

The coronavirus death toll has surpassed 10,000 in the United States and confirmed cases have topped 367,000.

President Donald Trump, who previously said the coronavirus would miraculously disappear, responded to the recent White House projection by saying any death toll less than 100,000 would be considered a success.

Redfield on Monday told KVOI radio in Tucson, Arizona, that social distancing of the type ordered by nearly all state governors was effective.

“If we just social distance, we will see this virus and this outbreak basically decline, decline, decline. And I think that’s what you’re seeing,” Redfield said. “I think you’re going to see the numbers are, in fact, going to be much less than what would have been predicted by the models.”

A research model from the University of Washington – one of several cited by leading health authorities – forecasts 81,766 U.S. coronavirus fatalities by Aug. 4, down about 12,000 from a weekend projection.

The pandemic has upended daily life around the globe, killing more than 74,000 people and infecting at least 1.3 million.

American hospitals have been overwhelmed with sufferers of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, reporting shortages of personnel, protective garments and other supplies while patients agonize alone, prohibited from receiving guests.

Even so, rates of growth and hospitalizations were slowing, possibly signaling a peak was at hand in three U.S. epicenters of the pandemic, the governors of New York and New Jersey said on Monday.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said statewide deaths from COVID-19 had leveled off around 600 per day in recent days, highest in the nation. But hospitalizations, admissions to intensive care units and the number of patients put on ventilator machines to keep them breathing had all declined, Cuomo said.

In neighboring New Jersey, the state with the second-highest number of cases and deaths, Governor Phil Murphy said efforts to reduce the spread “are starting to pay off.” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards likewise expressed cautious optimism, noting that new hospital admissions were trending down.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Howard Goller)