Warning against easing of US restrictions

NEW YORK: Americans must resist the impulse to ease socialseparation measures at the first glimpse of progress now being seen in the coronavirus battle, state government and public health leaders warned yesterday, as the US death toll surpassed 16,600.

Calls for heightened vigilance, countering talk from the Trump Administration of reopening the economy next month, came as new evidence emerged that stayathome restrictions were working to flatten the arc of infections in New York state, the US epicentre of the pandemic.

The number of newly hospitalised patients in New York dropped for a second day, to 200. Governor Andrew Cuomo said it was a sign social distancing was succeeding, even though the number of coronavirusrelated deaths in the state rose by 799 on Thursday, a record high for a third day.

‘‘You can’t relax. The flattening of the curve last night happened because of what we did yesterday,’’ Cuomo said.

The apparent progress in efforts to slow the virus’ spread were also reflected in fresh computer models scaling back the projected nationwide death toll to 60,000, down from earlier forecasts of at least 100,000.

A University of Washington model projected that Covid19 would claim 60,415 American lives by August 4, assuming current social distancing measures stayed in place. The peak was expected on Monday.

New York state has now recorded more than 7000 deaths from Covid19.

Perhaps nowhere was the grim calculus of the pandemic more evident than on Hart Island, a potter’s field at the western end of Long Island Sound, where labourers have been burying two dozen bodies of Covid19 victims a day.

New York state alone accounts for nearly half the total loss of life in recent days across the US, which leads the world in the total number of known infections at more than 468,000.

Fed chairman Jerome Powell warned against reopening the economy too early, but officials on President Donald Trump’s economic team were more bullish.

Asked on CNBC whether he believed the economy could be restarted as early as next month, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said yesterday, ‘‘I do.’’ As soon as Trump ‘‘feels comfortable with the medical issues’’. — Reuters