A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed at least 6,586 people in the
United States.
With
more than 257,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19, the U.S. has by far the highest
national tally in the world, according to data compiled by the Center for
Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
More
than 1 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with the disease. The
actual number is believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many
unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding the scope of
their nations' outbreaks.
Over
55,700 have died across the globe and at least 221,000 people have recovered.
Today's
biggest developments:
1. US death toll tops 6,0002. Google launches 'community mobility reports' during pandemic3. New York City morgues are running out of space4. US cuts 701k jobs in March, unemployment rate jumps to 4.4%.
Here's
how the story is developing today. All times Eastern. Please refresh this page
for updates.
1:20
p.m.: New Jersey's death toll climbs to 646
In
the last 24 hours, another 113 people died from coronavirus in New Jersey,
bringing the state's death toll to 646, Gov. Phil Murphy said.
With
4,372 new diagnosed cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, the Garden State
now has over 29,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19
 |
| Residents are greeted by medical personnel as Camden County's first public coronavirus drive-thru testing site opens in Camden's Cooper's Poynt Waterfront Park in Camden, N.J., April 1, 2020.Tom Gralish/AP |
"There
is no silver bullet we can load to make this go away overnight," the
governor said, as he urged New Jersey residents to honor those who have died by
staying home.
Murphy
said he is signing an executive order directing all flags to be lowered to
half-staff effective immediately, and lasting indefinitely, to honor those who
have died and those who will die.
"This
is one of the greatest tragedies to ever hit our state," Murphy tweeted
"Murphy said UBS is donating 10,000 N95 masks to the state while Tito's Handmade Vodka is sending 432 gallons of hand sanitizer, 3,000 masks and 2,000 gloves.I'm signing an Executive Order directing that all flags across NJ be lowered to half-staff indefinitely in honor of those we have lost – and those we will lose – to #COVID19.— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) April 3, 2020
This is one of the greatest tragedies to ever hit our state. We must have a constant & visible memorial. pic.twitter.com/2LOcEr1aPz
12:50
p.m.: WHO warns lifting lock downs early could end up being even worse for
economies
World
Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus -- who
called the coronavirus pandemic an "unprecedented crisis" -- issued a
warning to countries that are considering easing lockdowns given the
considerable economic suffering.
"If
countries rush to lift restrictions quickly, the coronavirus could resurge and
the economic impact could be more severe and prolonged," he said Friday.
"Financing the health response is an essential investment not just in
saving lives, but in the longer-term social and economic recovery."
 |
| Firefighters in protective suits are seen during an operation to disinfect Wuhan Tianhe International Airport, April 3, 2020.China Daily via Reuters. |
He
went on, "The best way for countries to end restrictions and ease their
economic effects is to attack the coronavirus, with the aggressive and
comprehensive package of measures that we've spoken about many times before:
find, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact."
"We
still have a long way to go in this fight," he noted
Dr.
Tedros also acknowledged the rise of domestic violence as victims are stuck
indoors with abusers and he urged countries to increase resources for victims.
New
York state -- the hardest-hit spot in the U.S. -- has seen an uptick in
domestic violence incidents, the governor said Friday.
The
District of Columbia is forecast to reach peak COVID-19 infections at the end
of June or beginning of July, Mayor Muriel Bowser said Friday, citing local
officials.
Bowser
said the projection -- based on the CHIME model -- estimates more than 93,000
residents could be infected with coronavirus over the course of the pandemic.
She said the modeling predicts between 220 and 1,000 deaths in D.C., calling it
a "tough number to report."
If
the forecast holds true, the mayor said the nation's capital will need 5,000
more hospital beds and 1,000 more ventilators.
 |
| Customers keep their social distance from each other while waiting in line to enter and shop at a Trader Joe's grocery store in Washington, D.C., on March 31, 2020.Erik S. Lesser/EPA via Shutterstock. |
11:45
a.m.: 2,935 dead in New York state
In
New York the state hit hardest by the pandemic -- 102,863 have tested
positive for coronavirus and 2,935 people have died, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said
Friday.
The
number of deaths in New York increased by nearly 600 from Thursday to Friday,
the biggest daily increase.
New
York state has by far the most cases and fatalities.
"New
York is in crisis," Cuomo said.
 |
| Franklin Graham Samaritan's Purse makeshift hospital in New York City on April 1, 2020.Steve Sanchez/Pacific Press/REX via Shutterstock. |
More
ventilators are still needed, the governor said, stressing that the machines
are the difference between life and death for coronavirus patients in intensive
care units.
Cuomo
said he is signing an executive order allowing the National Guard to take
ventilators and personal protection equipment from hospitals in the state that
don't need them now and redeploy the devices to other parts of the state.
 |
| Medical workers are seen moving a body from the sidewalk into a refrigerator truck outside of Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in the borough of Brooklyn on April 3, 2020 in New York City.Stephanie Keith/Getty Images. |
Those
hospitals will be reimbursed or the ventilators will be returned, Cuomo said.
"I'm
not going to let people die because we didn't redistribute ventilators,"
he said
Cuomo
also implored manufacturers in the state to begin making personal protection
equipment.
On
a more positive note, the governor said 20,000 health professionals volunteered
"in a matter of days" to come help New York.
"When
our curve is over," Cuomo vowed, "New Yorkers are going to take what
we've amassed, we're going to take our equipment, we're going to take our
personnel, we're going to take our knowledge and we will go to any community
that needs help."
11:12
a.m. Temporary hospitals at US convention centers will now treat COVID-19
patients
The
U.S. Department of Defense announced Friday that three temporary medical
facilities at convention centers in Dallas, New Orleans and New York, which
were originally intended to treat non-coronavirus patients, will now also take
those diagnosed with the disease.
"At
the request of FEMA, the Department of Defense will expand its medical support
to include COVID-19 positive patients at the Javits Federal Medical Station
(FMS) in New York City, the Morial FMS in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Kay
Bailey Hutchinson FMS in Dallas, Texas," the Pentagon said in a statement
Friday. "These three DoD-supported locations will now provide support to
COVID-19 positive patients in convalescent care, as well as low-acuity
patients. These patients, who require a lower level of medical care, must first
be screened at a local hospital."
The
facilities were initially set up to ease the strain on overloaded hospitals and
expand overall capacity.
"As
it turns out, we don't have non-COVID people to any great extent in the hospitals,"
Cuomo said Friday. "So, we wanted to turn Javits from non-COVID to
COVID.
 |
| Jacob Javits Center is now ready to begin treating coronavirus patients March 27, 2020. Matthew Mcdermott/Polaris |
The
Department of Defense said it is also making changes to the USNS Comfort's
process for taking in patients. Screening for care on the U.S. Navy hospital
ship docked in New York City will now occur pier-side "in an effort to
reduce the backlog at some of the nearby New York hospitals." A patient
will no longer require a negative COVID-19 test in order to be admitted, but
rather each individual will be screened by temperature and a short
questionnaire.
Previously,
a patient had to go to a local hospital, be referred to the USNS Comfort and
receive COVID-19 screening prior to being transferred there.
"This
assistance will further unburden the local hospital and ambulance systems in
these areas, allowing them to focus on the more serious COVID-19 cases,"
the Pentagon said. "We will immediately implement this action and work
with local officials in each area on the details of patient arrival."
9:45
a.m.: Queen Elizabeth to address pandemic in rare special broadcast this
weekend
Queen
Elizabeth II has recorded a special broadcast to the United Kingdom and the
televised address, which was recorded at Windsor Castle, will be broadcast
Sunday at 8 p.m. local time, according to the statement from the royal
household.
It
will be just the fourth time in the queen's 68-year reign that she has
delivered a special address to the nation.
The
queen's oldest child and heir apparent to the British throne, Prince Charles,
was diagnosed with COVID-19 in early March.
9:15
a.m.: US cuts 701K jobs in March, unemployment rate jumps to 4.4%
U.S.
employers slashed 701,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate climbed to
4.4% from 3.5%, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics.
Friday's
report offered more details on how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the
U.S. labor market.
About
90% of the U.S. population is under stay-at-home orders due to the pandemic and
many businesses are closed. At least 45 U.S. states have issued or announced
statewide closures of all non-essential businesses to help stop the spread of
the novel coronavirus.
8:43
a.m.: Florida-bound cruise ship confirms 12 positive cases
At
least 12 people aboard the Florida-bound cruise ship Coral Princess have tested
positive for the novel coronavirus.
Those
infected include seven guests and five crew, according to Princess Cruises, the
California-based cruise line that operates the ship.
Princess
Cruises said it "proactively" collected 13 test samples from the ship
and sent them to a lab in Barbados on March 31 "in response to a reported
small cluster of cases of respiratory illness and in an abundance of
caution."
The
Coral Princess is scheduled to arrive in Florida's Port Everglades on Saturday.
New
York City morgues are almost full amid a mounting death toll from the
coronavirus pandemic, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency records
reviewed by ABC News.
The
city has ordered 85 refrigerated trucks from the U.S. military to use as
makeshift morgues hold the dead. The trucks are expected to arrive by mid-April.
ABC
News has reached out to the U.S. Department of Defense as well as New York
City's office of chief medical examiner for comment.
So
far, at least 1,562 people in New York City have died from COVID-19, according
to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
6:32
a.m.: New poll shows less than half of Americans believe their daily routine
will return to normal by June
Fewer
than half of Americans believe their regular daily routine will return to
normal by June 1 amid sharply rising concerns over contracting the novel
coronavirus, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday.
In
the new poll, just over nine in 10 Americans now say that the outbreak has
disrupted their daily routine, showing the reach of the pandemic's impact.
Among those, 44% say they think they will be able to resume their regular
routine by June 1 including 13% who say by May 1 -- while a combined 84%
believe that will happen by the end of the summer.
Still,
concern over the pandemic continues on an upward trajectory, with 89% of
Americans now saying they are concerned that they or someone they know will be
infected with the virus, compared to 79% in a poll conducted from March 18-19
and 66% in a poll in the field from March 11-12. The steady increase in anxiety
includes nearly twice as many Americans who are now very concerned (now at 50%)
in the new poll, compared to the earliest poll in March when it was only 26%.
The
poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs in partnership with ABC News, using
Ipsos’ Knowledge Panel, on April 1-2, 2020, in English and Spanish, among a
random national sample of 559 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error
of 4.8 points, including the design effect. Read more about the poll's topline
results here.
5:48
a.m.: Google launches 'community mobility reports' during pandemic.
Google
is launching a tool that will publicly track people's movements amid the
coronavirus pandemic, allowing health officials to check whether their
communities are abiding by social-distancing measures.
The
California-based tech giant says it will publish and regularly update the
"community mobility reports," which are broken down by location and
display the change in visits to public places such as grocery stores and parks.
The tool, announced by the company late Thursday, uses "aggregated,
anonymized sets of data" that Google has collected on users, including
through Google Maps.
Google
says the reports "were developed to be helpful while adhering to our
stringent privacy protocols and protecting people’s privacy."
"No
personally identifiable information, such as an individual’s location, contacts
or movement, will be made available at any point," the company says.
3
a.m.: US death toll tops 6,000
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.
 |
| Paramedics transport a patient wearing a face mask to the emergency room entrance of the Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in the New York City borough of Brooklyn on April 2, 2020. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on April 2 urged all of the city's residents to cover their faces when outside and near others to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images. |
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.
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