U.S. Coronavirus Blog: Infection Spike Projected If Orders Lifted

Gus Saltonstall
Updated ·8 min read

This story on coronavirus developments is updated throughout the day with national news and developments from around our network of local Patches. Scroll down for links helpful to day-to-day living and stories on recent developments.

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As the world topped 100,000 deaths from the new coronavirus Friday, the United States death toll was more than 18,000, including almost 8,000 in New York alone.

The updated numbers from Johns Hopkins University trackers comes as The New York Times reported on projections from the federal Homeland Security and Health and Human Services departments on deaths if severe social distancing measures — including stay-at-home-orders and schools closures — are lifted.

The assessment was blunt: After 30 days we could be right back where we were before cities and states across the country virtually shut down weeks ago.

A lifting of the measures too soon, the departments warned, could lead to a significant increase in infections over the summer and a death toll that would reach the numbers the country would have seen had it not gone through the personal and economic pain the virus has caused already.

Federal Projections Show Spike In Infections If Shelter-In-Place Orders Lifted At 30 Days: NYT

The Coronavirus Was Spreading. The Parties Went On. Now Comes The Pain: Washington Post

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts attorney general said she was investigating after several people died of the virus at a veterans' home.

The projections and investigation come as President Donald Trump and members of his coronavirus task force at a briefing Friday bemoaned the "horrible" number of Americans who have died. But "in the midst of grief and pain," the president said the United States is seeing "clear signs" that its aggressive social distancing strategy is working, echoing sentiments felt by Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, which has by far the most cases in the country.

The comments come a day after a leading member of the White House's team of health experts also gave a hopeful update to the country as a whole, while also warning that several areas were identified as growing hot spots for the virus. Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator for the Trump administration, this week identified Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. as "areas of concern" for the spread of the virus.

On Thursday, though, Birx said the attack rates for the virus are lower than those in some of the early U.S. hot spots.

"The original outbreaks were very large, but the newer ones that we talk about in Washington and Philadelphia and Baltimore, it looks like their attack rates and attack rates in Denver and some of these other states we have been talking about are much lower than New York and New Jersey," Birx said.

She added that the attack rate in New York was seven in 1,000 but new attack rates in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. are one to two per 1,000.

With other cities in the nation beginning to brace for the apex of coronavirus cases, New York has reason to believe it is getting to the downside of the slope. New COVID-19 hospitalizations on Thursday dropped to the lowest number in the state since March 18.

Despite the small signs of hope in New York, the reality for its residents remain somber.

New York State has more coronavirus cases than any country on the planet.

On Friday, more than 161,000 New Yorkers tested positive for the virus and more than 7,000 had died. The astonishing figure means the Empire State has more cases than Spain and 20,000 more than Italy, the latter of which only recently was the global coronavirus hot spot.

By afternoon, 17,836 Americans had died from the virus.

Numbers: Latest U.S. Confirmed Cases And Death

The virus is costing jobs, too.

One in 10 workers is now unemployed, and the country is on track to see its highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression.

About 6.6 million people filed for jobless benefits last week, bringing the three-week total to 16.8 million. The numbers represent the largest and fastest string of job losses on records dating to 1948.

The number of jobless claims illustrates the staggering economic impact of the coronavirus; the outbreak is believed to have erased nearly one-third of the economy's output in the current quarter.

Restaurants, hotels, department stores and countless small businesses have laid off millions as they struggle to pay bills at a time when their revenue has vanished.

U.S. Coronavirus: Unemployment Claims Show 1 In 10 Have Lost Jobs

With so many Americans out of work, it may be hard for us to feel hopeful right now, but Trump said on Thursday he would like to reopen the economy in the near future.

"Hopefully we're going to be opening up the economy, very very, very, very soon," Trump said at the news conference.

The president also added that the United States has now completed more than 2 million coronavirus tests, adding that the tests are "highly sophisticated and highly accurate."

"We have, right now, the best testing system in the world," Trump said Thursday.

Still, many people across the country, including some who have shown symptoms including shortness of breath and fevers, are unable to get tested.

Trump's hopeful comments about the economy come as the number of coronavirus cases continues to grow in the United States, with more than 460,000 confirmed cases and over 16,500 deaths as of Thursday night.

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This article originally appeared on the Across America Patch