Covid-19 update (Temp Blog for progress)

US COVID-19 Cases Nearing 1mln

More than 54,800 people succumbed to the fatal virus in the US, as the country has become the global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic with nearly 970,000 confirmed cases.

Cases of the deadly disease and number of victims in the US continued to grow on Sunday with daily tallies bringing the overall figures to nearly 966,000 patients and 54,877 fatalities, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University, as the country tops the list of the COVID-19 affected nations worldwide.

Claims for jobless benefits have shattered historic highs in the five weeks since the United States began to feel the economic devastation from social distancing measures adopted to slow the spread of the fatal virus.

More than 26 million Americans have applied for their first round of unemployment insurance since March as shuttered businesses began laying off workers. Millions more are believed to have lost their jobs but have been unable to apply for or are disqualified from receiving jobless benefits.

Throughout January, as President Donald Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US government's top infectious disease expert, has stated that the United States would have saved lives had the country enforced firm social distancing requirements as early as February, but noted that those recommendations were met with pushback at the time.

A study shows the US is expected to suffer the most COVID-19 deaths. The new projection by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington's School of Medicine suggested that the US is unsurprisingly in first place. According to the IHME study, the country is poised to sustain some 81,000 coronavirus deaths by August. In the worst case scenario, the death toll might even surpass the 136,000 mark.

The White House had projected 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the United State from the coronavirus pandemic even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained. They suggest if no social distancing measures had been put in place across the country between 1.5 million to 2.2 million people would have died.

Globally, the death toll from the coronavirus has topped 206,500, on Monday, with more than 2,980,000 people infected worldwide, according to a tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.