Covid-19: US sets new single-day record with 884 deaths

Washington - So far, the total Covid-19 death toll the US reached 4,757.

The death toll from Covid-19 in the US jumped by 884 over the past 24 hours, setting a new one-day record for the country, according to Johns Hopkins University on Wednesday evening.

So far, the total Covid-19 death toll the US reached 4,757.

Youngest victim

Cases in the United States soared, rising to more than 213,000, the most anywhere in the world.
"We're going to have a couple of weeks, starting pretty much now, but especially a few days from now, that are going to be horrific. But even in the most challenging of times, Americans do not despair. We do not give in to fear," Trump told an evening news conference.

Among the victims was a six-week-old in Connecticut who was brought unresponsive to a hospital late last week, believed to be the youngest victim yet of the virus.

"Testing confirmed last night that the newborn was COVID-19 positive," Governor Ned Lamont wrote on Twitter. "This is absolutely heartbreaking."

The victims of the new coronavirus have been disproportionately elderly, but a number of recent cases have highlighted that the disease can befall even youngsters with seemingly strong immune systems.

The dead have included a 13-year-old in France, a 12-year-old in Belgium and 13-year-old Ismail Mohamed Abdullah in Britain, whose family said the "gentle and kind" boy had no underlying health issues.

Tightening curbs

The US numbers continued to outpace the rest of the globe, though Washington made clear it believes China, with a reported 82,000 cases, is deliberately masking its figures.

"How do we know" if they are accurate, Trump asked at a press conference, not denying a Bloomberg report that US intelligence has concluded China is concealing the extent of the coronavirus pandemic there.

"Their numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side," Trump said.

Densely populated New York continued to be the US epicenter.

Across the city, refrigerated trucks grimly parked outside hospitals to deal with the surge in bodies.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced he was closing all playgrounds and basketball courts to enforce "social distancing" to halt transmission.

"You still see too many situations with too much density by young people," he said. "No density, no basketball games."

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis ordered all 21 million residents of the Sunshine State to stay inside for one month, after having resisted a lockdown for weeks.