In New York, the flags will be set to half mast in the coming days to honor the thousands of victims of the corona pandemic. Meanwhile, there are increasing indications of a high number of unreported deaths.
New York (dpa) - The US state of New York, which was hit particularly hard by the corona pandemic, has seen more casualties than ever in the crisis, with 779 deaths in one day.
The number of deaths in the 20 million state totaled 6,268, Governor Andrew Cuomo said at his daily press conference on Wednesday. "This number of deaths will continue to increase," he said.
Cuomo ordered the flags to be half-masted in the state. He compared the situation to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which killed nearly 2,800 people in New York. The governor said he never thought he would see another major disaster in his life.
Nevertheless, Cuomo affirmed that the far-reaching exit restrictions were working, which can still be seen in the declining number of new hospital admissions. However, this does not mean that the measures can already be relaxed. "If we change something, the curve will change."
One is not even beginning to get out of the roughest. After reports of higher infection rates among African-Americans and Latinos, Cuomo announced that it would do more tests in the relevant communities.
In the meantime, there is growing evidence that the death toll in New York could be higher because many people die at home without medical treatment. On normal days, around 25 people have to be taken out of their homes in the metropolis, the leading general of the National Guard, Joseph Lengyel, said on Wednesday. "These numbers have increased significantly and 150 people have to be brought to the mortuary every day."
New York is currently the epicenter of the crisis with over 140,000 confirmed cases in the United States. There are now more than 400,000 registered infections and around 13,000 deaths across the country. That came out on Wednesday afternoon (local time) from data from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In the United States, a country with around 330 million inhabitants, there are significantly more known infections with the Sars-CoV-2 virus than in any other country in the world. However, the numbers can only be compared to a limited extent due to the different test rates and a high number of unreported cases.