US reports record 1,300+ Covid-19 deaths & 30,000+ new cases in 24hrs as New York braces for ‘D-Day’

With little sign of the curve flattening, the US has confirmed over 1,300 Covid-19 deaths in a single day, as well as more than 30,000 new cases, as New York City sounds alarms that its hospitals will soon run out of ventilators.

The disease and death tolls in the US continued to grow on Friday with daily tallies bringing the overall figures to 277,953 cases and 7,152 fatalities, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. Leading the world in infections, the US outbreak has yet to reach its peak.

With New York City the hardest-hit area of the country, contributing over one third of the nation’s cases and a disproportionate number of deaths, Mayor Bill De Blasio warned that Sunday could be the city’s “D-Day,” seeing hospitals run short of life-saving ventilators and healthcare workers overwhelmed with the influx of new patients.

“The hard part is our hospitals dealing with a massive surge in the coming days of not just Covid-19 cases, but folks who need ICU care,” the mayor said on Friday. 

If we have the personnel, if we have the equipment, lives are going to be saved. If we don’t, people will die who did not need to die.

The city is on track to have 5,000 patients on mechanical ventilation by Monday or Tuesday, and will require another 3,000 breathing machines and additional medical staff to make it through next week, De Blasio added.

While a US Navy medical ship was dispatched to help take the load off New York’s crowded hospitals and treat non-coronavirus patients, the vessel has only accepted 20 people to date, the NYT reported, citing a “tangle of military protocols and bureaucratic hurdles” limiting intake of those needing treatment.

Just shy of 1.1 million people worldwide have been sickened in the Covid-19 pandemic, with outbreaks across 181 countries and nearly 60,000 fatalities to date.

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