Coronavirus: American death toll set to top 100,000

Almost 39 million Americans are out of work and the death toll from the coronavirus is set to top 100,000 next week.

Donald Trump holds a protective face mask while touring a Ford factory in Michigan that has been converted to making personal protection and medical equipment. Picture: AP

All 50 US states have started reopening their economies as new figures show almost 39 million Americans are out of work, with the death toll from the coronavirus set to top 100,000 next week.

Donald Trump, who has strongly backed a rapid reopening of the world’s largest economy, said on Friday he wanted the country to get back to normal.

“I want to normalise,” he said. ‘The people want to get out, you’ll break the country if you don’t.”

He has accused Democrats of seeking to slow down for political reasons his efforts to reopen the economy, with Democrats calling for all American flags to be flown at half mast when the death toll from the virus hits 100,000.

“It would serve as a national ­expression of grief so needed by everyone in our country,” said House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said in a letter to Mr Trump.

The US death tolls stands at more than 96,000 and with more than 1000 deaths each day it is ­likely to reach 100,000 within days.

New figures show more than 2.4 million Americans filed jobless claims last week, taking total unemployment in the two months of the pandemic to the highest level since the Great Depression.

Congress is divided on whether to approve another economic stimulus package on top of the $US3 trillion approved so far to juice up the economy. Democrats in the house have approved a further $US3 trillion tax cut and spending bill to provide relief but Republicans in the Senate have ­rejected it, describing it as a Democratic agenda masquerading as a response to the pandemic.

The reopening of individual states is taking place at a different pace in every region depending on how active the virus. Even the hardest hit states such as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware are lifting some of restrictions and will be reopening beaches to coincide with the warmer weather and this weekend’s Memorial Day holiday.

Other states, including Florida and Georgia, are further lifting their capacity limits on restaurants, hair salons, gym and malls.

The gradual reopening of state economies has come with warnings from health experts it could trigger a larger second wave of deaths later this year unless social distancing is maintained.

Americans are slowly embracing their new-found freedoms with a new Gallup poll finding that one in five Americans — or 21 per cent — had visited a restaurant ­either to dine-in or pick-up in the past week compared with only 13 per cent the previous week.

Those who visited stores, apart from grocery stores, rose from 20 per cent to 25 per cent.

A Reuters study has found death rates in Democratic areas triple those in Republican ones.

The study found that those US counties that voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 reported 39 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 residents compared with 13 deaths out of every 100,000 people in counties that voted for Mr Trump.

The difference largely reflects the fact that the virus has taken a harder toll on densely packed Democrat-voting cities than it has in Republican-voting regional and rural areas of the country.

This may also be part of the reason why Republican voters are more likely to want to prioritise the economy over fighting the virus while Democrats are more likely to want to subdue the virus first ahead of reviving the economy.

Cameron Stewart is also US contributor for Sky News Australia