More than 100,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 — the disease caused by the novel coronavirus— since the pandemic began two months ago, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University.
The sobering milestone comes after a Memorial Day long weekend that saw U.S. President Donald Trump go golfing for the first time since the coronavirus was declared a national emergency on March 13.
The first cases of COVID-19 on U.S. soil were recorded in Washington state on Jan. 20.
In early May, a revised coronavirus mortality model by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) predicted close to 135,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 by early August, as social-distancing measures for quelling the pandemic are increasingly loosened. That was already almost double previous projections.
Trump has been urging states to reopen after COVID-19 lockdowns. On Friday, he warned state governors to reopen places of worship — otherwise he would override them.
Trump said he was declaring places of worship — churches, synagogues and mosques — as providers of essential services, to be reopened as soon as possible.
“If they don’t do it I will override the governors. In America we need more prayer, not less,” he said.
[ Sign up for our Health IQ newsletter for the latest coronavirus updates ]
Data tracked by Johns Hopkins University showed that as of May 27, there are more than 5.6 million cases of the coronavirus around the world, and more than 353,000 deaths.
The U.S. leads in both, by a large gap. Almost 1.7 million cases of COVID-19 have been recorded in the U.S., with Brazil coming in a distance second with more than 391,000 cases.
100,047 people had died as of May 27 in the U.S. — the highest death toll in the world. The second highest death toll is in the U.K., with more than 37,500 deaths.
More than 384,000 Americans have recovered.
Source link
