New York state recorded 731 new coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, marking the biggest one-day jump in the outbreak. The state’s death toll since the beginning of the outbreak is now 5,489, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo.
“That’s 731 people who we lost. Behind every one of those numbers is an individual. There’s a family, there’s a mother, there’s a father, there’s a sister, there’s a brother. So a lot of pain again today for many New Yorkers,” Cuomo said at a briefing at the state Capitol.
The coronavirus has again made New York City ground zero in a national tragedy and the centre of a crisis that is reshaping Americans’ lives, liberties and fears.
At least 3,202 people have died as a result of the virus in New York City alone, according to a new count released by city health officials on Tuesday.
The September 11, 2001, attacks “transformed society … You had a sense of vulnerability that you never had before, which I feel to this day,” Cuomo said during a coronavirus briefing last month. “There was a trauma to 9/11. But as a society, as a country, we have been blessed in that we have not gone through something as disruptive as this.”
The coronavirus death toll has mounted in just a few weeks. New York City recorded its first on March 13, less than two weeks after confirming its first infection.
But in an encouraging sign, Cuomo reported on Tuesday that the average number of people newly hospitalised each day dropped over the past three days.
Cuomo said the latest death tally reflects critically ill people hospitalised before this week, calling it a “lagging indicator”.
State and city officials are cautiously optimistic the surge is beginning to level off.
Across the United States, the death toll reached about 11,000, with around 370,000 confirmed infections.
