US reports 1480 Covid-19 deaths, highest in 24 hours

New Delhi: For 24 hours from 8.30 pm Thursday, the United States reported 1,480 coronavirus-related deaths, the highest single-day death toll across the world since the Covid-19 outbreak in December. The country has recorded over 7,000 deaths from the virus till date, and and more than 275,000 infections.

Most of the cases were report in New York, where there were 562 deaths in the 24-hour period — a death almost every two-and-a-half-minutes — taking the toll in the state to nearly 3,000. Approximately 15,000 people have been hospitalised in the state as a fallout of the pandemic.

US President Donald Trump has announced new guidelines for people in the country to follow, and urged everyone to wear masks or makeshift face coverings while stepping outdoors especially in virus hotspots. He also said he was preventing the exports of masks from the US in order to have enough medical supplies for American citizens.

Worldwide, the number of confirmed infections rose past 1 million and deaths topped 58,000, according to Johns Hopkins. Experts say both numbers are under counted due of the lack of testing, mild cases that were missed and governments that are underplaying the crisis.