On Saturday the US set a bleak global milestone with the number of coronavirus deaths soaring by 1,497 in just one day bringing the death toll past 8,500.
Nearly half of the day’s deaths occurred in New York City, where the death toll reached 2,624, and hospital streets occurred filled with the current victims ‘body bags.
The death toll in the US soared to 8,503 by Saturday’s end and the number of cases rose by 33,324 leaving 311,632 Americans diagnosed with the deadly virus.
That signals the world’s highest number of infections.
Whereas the number of deaths in Italy (15,362) and Spain (11,947) is much higher, the US is already dwarfing the infections of the fast-hit European nations, with Italy (124,632) and Spain (126,168) registering just about a third of the sum of infections in the United States.
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York cautioned that the pandemic is ‘like a burning storm,’ as the epidemic threatens to ravage and wreck his state.
The epicenter for the epidemic in the US has yet to hit its ‘peak’ although its hospitals and morgues are still near to tipping point.
The death count of the state of New York increased to 3,565 Saturday when another 788 New Yorkers died of the outbreak, marking it to be the highest tally.
The number of new diagnoses crossed 10,675 in the state and the overall number of infections reached 113,833, more than the number of infections in Spain as a whole.
The highest number of deaths were reported in New York City itself which accounted for 757 of the state’s 788 reported fatalities.
In fact, more than a quarter of all coronavirus deaths in the 50 states account for 2,624 fatalities in the region.
There was still no evidence of easing in the pace of new diagnoses, with 6,147 reported Saturday bringing the number of infections to a whopping 63,306.
Over 13,000 cases have been confirmed in Nassau County as doubts are being raised if the outbreak may have been caused by affluent New Yorkers leaving the town to escape to holiday homes there.
New York City hospitals appear to be overrun by the rising corpses, with disturbing images arising from body bags that hold the current victims of the killer virus pouring out into the halls at Wyckoff Hospital in Brooklyn.
With increase in the number of casualties, funeral homes are said to be ‘overwhelmed’ with the grim count of death and bodies are now left in refrigerated trucks for days.
On Friday, an emergency warning was sent to all mobile phones in the city calling for all healthcare staff to assist at medical facilities where they can.
Around 85,000 emergency personnel have replied to the call for aid, with 22,000 arriving in the epicenter from outside the state to work.