NYC deaths pass 4,000, topping toll for 9/11 attacks
New York City’s death toll from the coronavirus rose past 4,000 on Tuesday, eclipsing the number killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson lay in intensive care, believed to be the first major world leader hospitalized with the virus.
The twin developments came even as the crisis seemed to be easing or at least stabilizing, by some measures, in New York and parts of Europe, though health officials warned people at nearly every turn not to let their guard down.
After 76 days, China finally lifted the lockdown on Wuhan, the city of 11 million where the outbreak began.
COVID-19’s toll in New York City is now more than 1,000 deaths higher than that of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil. That attack killed 2,753 people in the city and 2,977 overall, when hijacked planes slammed into the twin towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001.
New York state recorded 731 new coronavirus deaths, its biggest one-day jump yet, for a statewide toll of nearly 5,500, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
“A lot of pain again today for many New Yorkers,” he said.
But in an encouraging sign, the governor said hospital admissions and the number of those receiving breathing tubes are dropping, indicating that measures taken to force people to keep their distance from one another are succeeding.
And alarming as the oneday increase in deaths might sound, the governor said that’s a “lagging indicator,” reflecting people who had been hospitalized before this week. Over the past several days, in fact, the number of deaths in New York appeared to be leveling off.
“You see that plateauing — that’s because of what we are doing. If we don’t do what we are doing, that is a much different curve,” Cuomo said. “So social distancing is working.”
Across the U.S., the death toll topped 12,000, with around 380,000 confirmed infections. Some of the deadliest hot spots were Detroit, New Orleans and the New York metropolitan area, which includes parts of Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut. New Jersey recorded over 1,200 dead, most of them in the northern counties where many residents commute into New York City.
In London, the 55-yearold Johnson was in stable condition and conscious at a hospital, where he was receiving oxygen but was not on a ventilator, officials said. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was designated to run the country in the meantime.
“For all of us in Cabinet, he is not just our boss. He’s also a colleague and he’s also our friend,” Raab said. “And I’m confident he’ll pull through because if there’s one thing I know about this prime minister, he’s a fighter.”
Deaths in Britain reached nearly 6,200, after a oneday increase of almost 800.
In the U.S., President Donald Trump trained his anger at the World Health Organization and threatened to freeze U.S. funding for it, saying the international group had “missed the call” on the pandemic and that it was “very China-centric.”
Trump suggested the WHO had gone along with Beijing’s efforts months ago to minimize the severity of the outbreak. The WHO has praised China for its transparency on the virus, even though some public-health experts regard the country’s figures with suspicion.
“They should have known and they probably did know,” Trump said of WHO officials.
In some European hot spots, as in New York, authorities saw signs that the outbreak was turning a corner, based on slowdowns in new deaths and hospitalizations.
In Spain, new deaths Tuesday rose to 743 and infections climbed by 5,400 after five days of declines, but the increases were believed to reflect a weekend backlog. Authorities said they were confident in the downward trend.
In Italy, with over 16,500 deaths, new cases dropped to a level not seen since the early weeks of the outbreak.
“Finally it seems we are beginning to see a lessening of new cases,” said Giovanni Rezza, director of the infectious-disease division of Italy’s national health institute.
In France, the number of dead passed the bleak milestone of 10,000, climbing to more than 10,300, said Jerome Salomon, national health director.
“We are in the epidemic’s ascendant stage,” he said. “We have not yet reached the peak.” But he offered a glimpse of hope, saying the virus rate is ”slowing a little.”
Worldwide, about 1.4 million people have been confirmed infected and over 79,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.