Deaths tied to the novel coronavirus pandemic topped 3,000 in the United States after a further 540 people died with the virus, surpassing the number of people killed during the 9/11 terror attacks and Hurricane Maria. According to Johns Hopkins University, 3,173 people have died due to the virus in the U.S.—more than the estimated 2,996 who died on 9/11 and the 2,975 who died during the 2017 hurricane.
The grim milestone comes as a field hospital in New York City’s iconic Central Park was finished to help with the overflow of patients from the nation’s largest city’s hospitals and the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort docked near the Statue of Liberty. “It’s a war-time atmosphere and we all have to pull together,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday as the ship docked.
The U.S. was set to overtake China’s reported 3,300 deaths, likely by day’s end. Elsewhere, the World Bank warned that the pandemic would likely lead to extreme poverty in parts of East Asia, which is still grappling to contain the outbreak. The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak began late last year, marked its seventh day with no new infections as questions loom over the true extent of the outbreak there.
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