Coronavirus update: Global infections top 500K; US challenges Italy with case surge
Coronavirus infections set a grim high water mark of more than 500,000 infections and over 22,000 deaths, real-time data from Johns Hopkins University showed on Thursday, a stark reminder of how the inability to contain surging caseloads in Europe and the United States has brought the global economy to a standstill.
At its core a public health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a force multiplier behind a recession that’s likely to be deep and wrenching, and tumult in global markets that are straining credit markets.
On Thursday, America’s death toll topped 1,000 on nearly 70,000 diagnoses. Led by soaring infection rates in New York of over 37,000, U.S. cases are now marginally behind Italy — which with over 80,000 infections and 8000-plus deaths has the worst cluster outside of China, where the outbreak began. Ironically, the latter is now reporting no new cases, even with the Western world beset by mounting casualties.
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases, told reporters on Wednesday that the coronavirus could “possibly become a seasonal cyclic thing.”
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