Coronavirus Pandemic: US records highest spike of 4,591 fatalities in last 24 hours; death toll mounts to 33,000

The United States of America has become one of the most affected countries in the world by the coronavirus pandemic. In the last 24 hours, the US has recorded over 4,500 deaths, highest spike ever recorded, taking the total fatalities in the country to more than 33,000, news agency PTI reported quoting the Wall Street Journal. The previous highest was 2,569 deaths recorded on Wednesday.

By Thursday night, the deadly virus has infected over 671,000 people in America and claimed more than 33,000 lives, the highest for any country in the world.

The New York city and its adjoining areas including New Jersey and Connecticut have emerged as the epicentre of the coronavirus in the US. Out of the total cases and fatalities in the country, New York alone accounts for 226,000 cases of infections and 16,106 deaths, while in New Jersey, as many as 3,518 people have died of the disease and 75,317 have tested positive.

However, US President Donald Trump on Thursday, as quoted by news agency PTI, said that experts and scientists report that his strategy to slow the spread of the virus has saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

“Models predicted between 1.5 million and 2.2 million US deaths. If there was no mitigation, it could have even been higher than that and between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths with mitigation. It is looking like we will come far under even these lowest numbers,” he said.

Trump also said that according to the experts the curve of the virus has flattened, and the peak in the new cases has passed as more than 850 counties or nearly 30 per cent of the country have reported no new cases in the last seven days.

“Because of our early and aggressive action, we have avoided the tragedy of health care rationing and deadly shortfalls that have befallen in many other nations, nations which wherever possible we are helping,” he said.

The dreaded disease, which originated in Wuhan city in China in December last year, has so far claimed more than 144,000 lives and infected over 2.1 million people globally.