US death toll tops 6,000 as global diagnosed cases cross 1 million
UNITED STATES (ABC News) – A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than a million people across the globe, a quarter of whom are in the United States.
The mounting death toll from the novel coronavirus in the United States surpassed 6,000 early Friday morning, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
A vast majority of those deaths have occurred in New York state, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak. The virus has claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people in New York City alone.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has asked the U.S. Department of Defense for 100,000 body bags due to the possibility that funeral homes across the country will become overwhelmed, a Pentagon spokesman told ABC News on Thursday.
About 90% of the U.S. population is under stay-at-home orders, and many businesses are closed.
The new respiratory virus, which causes an illness known officially as COVID-19, has spread to dozens of countries on every continent except Antarctica since it was first detected in China back in December.
More than 211,000 people diagnosed with the disease worldwide have recovered, while over 53,000 have died, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported mild cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding the scope of their nations’ outbreaks.
