New York City recorded its first child death due to COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, officials said Monday. The total number of deaths in New York state reached 1,218 overnight. On Saturday, Illinois officials reported the death of an infant younger than one-year-old from the coronavirus in Chicago.
“If there was ever a moment for unity, this is the moment. This virus doesn’t discriminate. It attacks everyone, and it attacks everywhere,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in Monday’s press briefing, reports NBC New York. “This virus has been ahead of us from Day 1. I’m tired of playing catch-up with this virus. You never win when you’re playing catch-up. If you are not prepared for the apex, for the high point, you are missing the point of the operation. It is a fundamental blunder to only prepare for today.”
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The age of the New York City child was not released, but health officials said the child had an underlying condition. The child’s death came after the Illinois Department of Public Health recorded the first case of an infant dying from COVID-19 in the U.S. on Saturday.
The U.S. now has more confirmed coronavirus cases in the world with more than 159,000 as of Monday afternoon. There have been more than 2,900 deaths recorded, including 790 deaths in New York City alone. New York state has 66,497 cases, including 36,000 in New York City. More than 42 percent of the city’s cases involve patients 18 to 44 years old.
“We’ve lost more than 1,000 New Yorkers,” Cuomo said Monday. “To me, we’re beyond ‘staggering’ already. We’ve reached ‘staggering.’ The point is to save every life that you can, that’s what this is all about.”
The shocking numbers from New York came as Dr. Deborah Brix, a member of the White House’s coronavirus response team, said on the Today Show Monday the death total could reach 100,000 to 200,000, even “if we do things almost perfectly.”
“I think everyone understands now that you can go from five to 50 to 500 to 5,000 cases very quickly,” Brix said. “I think in some of the metro areas we were late in getting people to follow the 15-day guidelines.”
During Sunday’s press conference, President Donald Trump announced he would extend the social distancing guidelines to April 30. Trump said if the death toll could stay at or below 100,000, it would show the government has “done a very good job.” He hoped the country could conduct business as usual by June 1 and will unveil new guidelines on Tuesday.
“We can expect that, by June 1st, we will be well on our way to recovery,” Trump said. “We think by June 1st, a lot of great things will be happening.”
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