Live updates: Coronavirus death toll surpasses 90,000 as all 50 U.S. states take steps toward reopening
May 19, 2020 / By Marisa Iati, Miriam Berger, Siobhán O’Grady, Felicia Sonmez, Meryl Kornfield, Samantha Pell and Candace Buckner
The coronavirus’s U.S. death toll surpassed 90,000 on Tuesday, marking another grim milestone in the pandemic that has greatly affected the country. Three months after the nation’s first death connected to the virus, the number of new deaths reported Tuesday narrowly rose above the country’s seven-day average. Nearly one-third of the coronavirus deaths reported in the country have occurred in New York, where more than 27,000 have died.
The process of reopening the U.S. economy will enter a new phase as Memorial Day weekend approaches. By Wednesday, all 50 states will have begun lifting restrictions put in place to combat the coronavirus outbreak. Many public health officials and politicians, however, continued to raise concerns that increased activity would put Americans at greater risk of a new surge of infections.
Here are some significant developments:
- U.S. stocks plunged in the last hour of trading Tuesday to halt a three-day winning streak and dampen the euphoria from Monday’s monstrous gains. The Dow Jones industrial average slid 390 points, or 1.6 percent.
- The World Bank warned Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic could push 60 million people into extreme poverty, another startling statistic aiming to quantify the massive human suffering the virus has wrought globally.
- Greenhouse gases plunged 17 percent because of coronavirus lockdowns, a sudden decline that is likely without precedent but is unlikely to last.
- President Trump revealed that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine to protect against the coronavirus, even though the drug is not proven to prevent infections and can have deadly side effects. Vice President Pence told Fox News he has not joined Trump in taking the drug.
- The architect and manager of Florida’s coronavirus dashboard said she was removed from her position because she refused to censor data and “manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen.”
