New York’s worst day sees 731 deaths as hospital cases ease

A plateau in new hospital cases means virus ‘might be close to peaking’ in New York.

A patient is wheeled out of Elmhurst Hospital Center to a waiting ambulance yesterday in New York’s Queens borough. Picture: AP

New York has had its deadliest day yet in the coronavirus pandemic with 731 deaths in a day, although a plateau in new hospitalisations raised hopes that the toll in the nation’s virus hotspot may be close to peaking.

It came as the director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the eventual death toll in the US may be “much lower” that initial forecast because Americans were practicing social distancing more than the initial models predicted.

CDC director Robert Redfield said early models predicted only 50 per cent of Americans would pay attention to social distancing guidelines, when in reality the figure is far higher.

“What we’re seeing is a large majority of the American public are taking the social distancing recommendations to heart,” he said. “And I think that’s the direct consequence of why you’re seeing the numbers are going to be much, much, much, much lower than would have been predicted by the models.”

The White House said last month that it estimated between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans would die from coronavirus.

Donald Trump also said on Wednesday the eventual death toll could be lower than expected.

“We are looking to have far fewer deaths than originally thought,’ he said, although he added it was too early to be sure.

The death toll in the US jumped by more than 1000 people today (AEDT) to more than 12,300 from almost 390,000 cases.

Mr Trump said the hotspots of New York and New Jersey were “being hit very hard now” and that hopefully in the next week or so “we start going in the other direction” in the battle against a virus that he called “the monster”.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said there was “a lot of pain today” for New Yorkers after the state recorded its highest toll yet of 731 deaths from the virus, taking the death toll to 5489.

“Behind every one of those numbers is an individual, is a family, is a mother, is a father, is a sister, is a brother,” he said.

But Mr Cuomo said there were encouraging signs that the epidemic may be peaking in his state with the number of new patients in hospitals increasing by less than 7 per cent for three straight days after growing by at least 20 per cent for weeks.

The number of patients on ventilators in intensive-care units also increased by only 2 per cent, the smallest one-day rate in weeks.

“Right now, we’re projecting that we’re reaching a plateau in total number of hospitalisations,” he said.

“To the extent that we see a flattening or a possible plateau, that’s because of what we are doing and we have to keep doing it.”

New York’s neighbouring state of New Jersey also hit its highest one day toll with 232 people dying in a day, taking that state’s toll to 1,232.

In New York Harbour, the navy hospital ship Comfort, which is taking serious coronavirus cases, reported that a crew member had tested positive to the virus and had been quarantined.

In Wisconsin, the virus played havoc with voting in the Democratic primary, which was held despite other states delaying their primary contests because of the pandemic.

The poll only proceeded following a legal battle after the state’s governor tried but failed to prevent in-person voting because of the risks to voters.

The ballot saw long lines of voters defying stay-at-home guidelines to stand in queues with social distancing between them to cast their vote.

New data revealed that the virus is killing African Americans at a greater rate than whites because it preys upon pre-existing conditions like diabetes and heart disease which are more prevalent among African Americans.

In Chicago, black Americans account for 68 percent of the city’s 118 deaths despite making up just 30 percent of the city’s population while in Louisiana, 70 per cent of deaths are African Americans although they are only one-third of the state’s population.

Mr Trump said African Americans were now “getting hit very very hard ... It’s a tremendous challenge, it’s terrible.”

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Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia