Samara Heisz/iStock(NEW YORK) — A global pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed at least 11,008 people in the United States.
The U.S. is among the hardest-hit countries with more than 368,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Worldwide, more than 1.36 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and over 76,400 of them have died since the virus emerged in China in December. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding the scope of their nations’ outbreaks.
Italy has the world’s highest death toll — over 16,500.
Here’s how the story is developing Tuesday. All times Eastern:
11:25 a.m.: New York death toll sees largest single-day jump
New York — the state hit hardest by the pandemic — saw its largest single-day death toll jump from Monday to Tuesday.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo says 731 people lost their lives in the state in the last 24 hours, bringing New York’s total number of coronavirus fatalities to 5,489.
Over 138,000 people in the state have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
However, the three-day hospitalization rate in New York is moving down, a sign the state is reaching a plateau.
“It still depends on what we do,” Cuomo warned Tuesday. “This is not an act of God … it’s an act of what society actually does.”
Cuomo compared the coronavirus pandemic to the 1918 flu pandemic which he said peaked in New York for six months, killing about 30,000 people in the state.
“They didn’t react the way we did and they didn’t know what we know today,” he said.
10:15 a.m.: Nation’s largest Gothic cathedral to be converted to hospital
The nation’s largest Gothic cathedral, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, is being converted this Holy Week into a temporary field hospital.
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is in New York City — the U.S. city hit hardest by the pandemic.
Beds and medical supplies are in the process of being moved into the Cathedral in an effort to lessen the pressure on New York City’s overburdened health care system.
The Right Reverend Clifton Daniel III, dean of the Cathedral, said, “The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is stepping up now, as we always have, to help support our diverse and beloved community and the community of doctors, nurses, and volunteers risking their health and well-being in the service of the people of New York City in our hour of need.”
9:47 a.m.: TSA screenings reach ‘lowest since the days after Sept. 11’
U.S. plane travel has plunged to “the lowest since the days after Sept. 11,” a Transportation Security Administration spokesperson told ABC News.
TSA screenings reached another record low Monday with only 108,310 travelers passing through checkpoints nationwide.
On the same weekday last year, TSA screened 2,384,091 passengers.
8:23 a.m.: UK prime minister is ‘stable’ in ICU
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was “stable” and in “good spirits” on Tuesday morning after spending a night in the intensive care unit of a London hospital, according to a statement from his official residence and office, 10 Downing Street.
The statement noted that Johnson is receiving “standard” oxygen treatment while in the ICU and is breathing without any other assistance.
“He has not required mechanical ventilation or non-invasive respiratory support,” Downing Street said. “The prime minister has not had a pneumonia diagnosis.”
Johnson, 55, has been hospitalized at St. Thomas’ Hospital in central London since Sunday evening due to “persistent symptoms” of novel coronavirus infection. He was transferred to the ICU on Monday afternoon after his conditioned “worsened,” according to Downing Street.
7:30 a.m.: ‘There is a light at the end of this tunnel,’ US Surgeon General says
While still maintaining that this will be a difficult week for Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Tuesday that he feels “a lot more optimistic” as he reassured citizens “there is a light at the end of this tunnel.”
“I absolutely believe this is going to be an incredibly sad and an incredibly hard week for our country, but we’ve had tough times in this country before and we always come out stronger,” Adams told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview on Good Morning America.
“The good news is that when you look at Italy, when you look at Spain, when you look at Washington and California, and even New York and New Jersey, they have truly started to flatten their curves,” he added. “They’ve seen cases level off and start to come down, and that’s what I want people to understand — that it’s going to be a hard and tough week, but the American people have the power to change the trajectory of this epidemic if we come together like we have after past tragedies in this country.”
Adams said the latest data shows U.S. states like Washington and California have successfully flattened the curves of their outbreaks “because they were aggressively mitigating from the start.”
“The most important thing for the American people now is to really focus on these 30-days-to-slow-the-spread guidelines because we have proof that they work,” he said. “But we need you all to cooperate, we need you to continue doing your part — and most people actually are. Over 90% of the country is actually doing the right thing right now.”
As of Tuesday morning, eight U.S. states have still not issued or announced stay-at-home orders. Adams said the federal government doesn’t really have “a good mechanism” to enforce stay-at-home orders as much as state authorities do.
“We’re working with governors, talking with them every single day, working with states to give them the information they need to make the right choices,” he said. “And that’s really what this comes down to, it’s got to happen at the community level.”
Whenever the country does start to reopen, Adams said it’ll still be a “different normal” than what Americans are used to. There will be a greater sense of normalcy once testing becomes more widely available, a vaccine and therapeutics are approved, and there’s a strong public health infrastructure in place, he said.
“But I want the American people to know that there is a light at the end of this tunnel,” Adams added, “and we feel confident that if we keep doing the right thing for the rest of this month, that we can start to slowly reopen in some places.”
7:09 a.m.: France has not yet peaked, health minister warns
The number of patients hospitalized in intensive care for the novel coronavirus in France has been steadily decreasing for the past five days. But French Health Minister Olivier Veran warned Tuesday that the country has not yet reached the peak of its outbreak.
“We are still in a worsening phase of the pandemic,” Véran told French broadcaster BFM TV, adding that the nationwide lockdown would last as long as necessary.
Almost 99,000 people across France have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and nearly 9,000 of them have died, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Close to 30,000 patients infected with the novel coronavirus are currently hospitalized, according to the French health ministry.
6:25 a.m.: Positive cases top 10,000 in Africa
At least 10,075 people across Africa have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to figures released Tuesday by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
So far, 487 people diagnosed with COVID-19 have died.
The Northern Africa region has, by far, the largest cluster of cases on the continent, with 4,485 confirmed infections. However, with 1,686 positive cases, South Africa now has the highest national total, surpassing that of both Algeria and Egypt, according to the Africa CDC.
5:05 a.m.: Japan declares state of emergency for seven prefectures
Japan on Tuesday declared a month-long state of emergency for Tokyo and six other prefectures to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced the order in a brief televised statement, saying the country’s outbreak was threatening to gravely impact people’s lives and the economy.
The declaration, effective through May 6, empowers governors of the prefectures of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Osaka, Hyogo and Fukuoka to take more preventative measures, such as requesting citizens to stay home, calling for businesses to close as well as shuttering schools and other public facilities. Supermarkets and other essential businesses are allowed to remain open.
However, the declaration is not expected to lead to drastic urban lockdowns like the ones seen in Europe as Japan’s post-World War II constitution limits the central government’s powers.
At least 3,906 people in Japan have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and 92 of them have died, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. The Japanese government has admitted that infection routes cannot be traced in an increasing number of cases.
3:30 a.m.: China reports no new deaths for first time since January
China on Tuesday reported zero new deaths from the novel coronavirus over the past 24 hours.
China’s National Health Commission recorded 32 new cases of confirmed infections across the mainland, all of which were imported from abroad, as well as 30 new asymptomatic cases. However, it’s the first time the country has reported no new deaths since the commission began publishing daily figures in late January.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong has seen its number of confirmed infections more than double in recent weeks. The Chinese special administrative region on Tuesday reported 1,331 new cases in the past 24 hours, according to the National Health Commission.
The very first cases of COVID-19 were detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December before the disease spread around the globe.
Since then, a total of 81,740 people on the Chinese mainland have been diagnosed with the disease and 3,331 of them have died, according to the National Health Commission.
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