US coronavirus death toll sees record single-day increase bringing total to over 25,000, says new tally

There are now 600,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in US, three times more than any other country

The total number of US deaths from the coronavirus increased to 25,700 on Tuesday, according to a tally by Reuters.

This sets the single-day record for number of deaths, with an increase of 2,082. The previous record was 2,069 deaths, set on 10 April.

There are now 600,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the US, three times more than any other country. There are approximately 2 million cases worldwide.

Health officials forecast that the number of deaths per day would peak this week or last, and it was hoped that the high point had been reached when the number fell to 1,500 per day on Sunday and Monday — down from approximately 2,000 per day last week, according to Reuters’ numbers.

Through Monday, deaths have increased by about seven per cent per day on average compared with 14 per cent last week and 30 per cent many days in March.

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The number of cases through Monday is up an average of 5 per cent per day compared with 7.8 per cent last week and 30 per cent per day in March.

With 94 per cent of the population under sweeping stay-at-home restrictions, it is hoped that the spread of the virus has been substantially curbed.

The latest figures from New York state, the epicentre of the US outbreak, appear to show a stabilisation of the number of deaths per day and a drop in hospitalisations and intubations.

On Tuesday morning, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the total number of cases for the state now stood at 202,208 with 10,834 deaths. New York City recorded 110,465 cases and 7,690 deaths.

However, on Tuesday afternoon, the city’s health department announced that it would now be including people that were presumed to have died from the virus but had never tested positive.

This change in policy caused the number of recorded deaths in New York City to jump by more than 3,700 to over 10,000, since 11 March.

“Behind every death is a friend, a family member, a loved one. We are focused on ensuring that every New Yorker who died because of Covid-19 gets counted,” said Health Commissioner Dr Oxiris Barbot.

Other states and municipalities are also recording probable cases, as per Centres for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

With reporting from Reuters