Americans likely to see things get a whole lot worse

The United States now has the highest number of known cases of coronavirus in the world with more than 85,000, according to the latest figures. As of yesterday, it overtook Italy and China, where the virus began, to become the worst affected country, but why has the US seen so many cases?

At a White House briefing, President Donald Trump said the recorded figures were “a tribute to the amount of testing that we’re doing”. He boasted that the US was doing more testing than any other country, with “quicker, better tests,” the “best tests in the world”.

This is only partly true. New York, which has now become the epicentre of the global outbreak, has carried out tens of thousands of tests in a matter of weeks. The state of New York is now recording nearly half the country’s case total, with 40,000 out of 86,000.

On Thursday, Andrew Cuomo, its governor, said it had done 122,100 tests for 19.5 million residents, or one test per 160 people. For comparison, South Korea, one of the best testers in the world, has carried out 300,000 for its 51 million population, or 1 in 170.

However, the US as a whole is among the worst of any developed country. Other states have test shortages which suggests case numbers may be much higher than official figures show.

But how deadly has the virus been for Americans? The death rate is much lower than in Italy or China but the outbreak has yet to peak. Experts predict the US could overtake both in terms of number of fatalities.

On the Global Health Security Index, a “report card” grading every country on pandemic preparedness, the US placed top with a score of 83.5. But it was slow to react to the outbreak. Mr Trump initially tried to downplay the problem, which led to a confused message. Then there was a shortage of tests and some states have complained of a severe lack of masks and ventilation equipment.

The US also has one of the lowest number of acute care hospital beds per 1,000 people in the developed world – just 2.2. Japan has nearly eight per 1,000 and Germany has six.

What is also concerning is the number of states, 15 out of 50, reporting more than 1,000 cases, making it harder to focus the fight. China had one epicentre: Wuhan. South Korea initially had just Daegu. Italy has Lombardy and the UK has London.