The U.S.first 1,000 coronavirus deaths took a month. The next 1,000 took two days.UPDATES.

For the first time, more than 20,000 new infections were announced in a day, pushing the nation’s total past 120,000.
It took about a month from the first confirmed death for the United States to record 1,000, but the toll has risen rapidly, and officials say the worst is yet to come. The earliest death was announced in Washington state on Feb. 29.

The sharp rise in confirmed cases and fatalities comes as the pandemic’s epicenter has shifted to the United States and as health professionals and officials countrywide sound alarms that hospitals are not prepared for an influx of coronavirus patients.

Globally, confirmed cases now exceed 650,000, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.

Cuomo anticipates 14 to 21 days until N.Y. outbreak peaks, as New York City alone records 222 deaths in 24 hours
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) anticipates the coronavirus outbreak in New York state will reach its apex in “14 to 21 days,” based on health and science data projections, he said during a news conference Saturday. New York is the hardest-hit state in the United States so far, with more than 52,000 confirmed cases and at least 728 deaths.


Later Saturday, New York City officials reported 222 new deaths in the past 24 hours, 155 of them since morning.

In sharing the forecast of infections yet to come, Cuomo redoubled his call for more personal protective gear, such as masks, gowns and, crucially, ventilators. President Trump has publicly questioned Cuomo’s request for the lifesaving equipment and doubted the need for 30,000 to 40,000 ventilators.

Cuomo addressed the skepticism for his large request, saying he’s only acting based on what the data from scientists say. The governor further shared his frustration that the cost of ventilators has risen in some cases by as much as $20,000 from their normal costs because of their scarcity. He has called for the federal government to nationalize the procurement of emergency equipment.

Desperate for medical equipment, states encounter a beleaguered national stockpile

States seeking masks, drugs, ventilators and other items from the stockpile are encountering a system beset by years of underfunding, changing lines of authority, confusion over the allocation of supplies and a lack of transparency from the administration, said state and federal officials and public health experts.
The stockpile holds masks, drugs, ventilators and other items in secret sites around the country. It has become a source of growing frustration for many state and hospital officials who are having trouble buying — or even locating — crucial equipment on their own to cope with the illness battering the nation.
Despite its name, it was never intended for an emergency that spans the entire nation.
The federal cache has been overwhelmed by urgent requests for masks, respirators, goggles, gloves and gowns in the two months since the first U.S. case of covid-19 was confirmed. Many state officials say they do not understand the standards that determine how much they will receive.

Anecdotally, there are wide differences, and they do not appear to follow discernible political or geographic lines. Democratic-leaning Massachusetts, which has had a serious outbreak in Boston, has received 17 percent of the protective gear it requested, according to state leaders. Maine requested a half-million N95 specialized protective masks and received 25,558 — about 5 percent of what it sought. The shipment delivered to Colorado — 49,000 N95 masks, 115,000 surgical masks and other supplies — would be “enough for only one full day of statewide operations,” Rep. Scott R. Tipton (R-Colo.) told the White House in a letter several days ago.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency inherited control of the stockpile barely a week ago from HHS. Lizzie Litzow, a FEMA spokeswoman, acknowledged the agency maintains a spreadsheet tracking each state’s request and shipments. Litzow declined repeated requests to release the details, saying the numbers are in flux.

Florida has been an exception in its dealings with the stockpile: The state submitted a request on March 11 for 430,000 surgical masks, 180,000 N95 respirators, 82,000 face shields and 238,000 gloves, among other supplies — and received a shipment with everything three days later, according to figures from the state’s Division of Emergency Management. It received an identical shipment on March 23, according to the division, and is awaiting a third.

President Trump repeatedly has warned states not to complain about how much they are receiving, including Friday during a White House briefing, where he advised Vice President Pence not to call governors who are critical of the administration’s response. “I want them to be appreciative,” he said.

At briefings, Trump and Pence routinely say material is being purchased for the stockpile, supplies are being shipped out and manufacturers under federal contract are ramping up supplies. But Trump and Pence also urge states to buy supplies on their own. During the March 19 briefing, Trump said governors “are supposed to be doing a lot of this work. . . . You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.”

The stockpile program was created at the end of the 1990s in response to terrorist events. The original goal was to be prepared for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats. The reserve, for example, was stocked with nerve agent antidotes, stored and maintained at more than 1,300 locations around the country, where they could be accessed quickly.
In the decades since, its mission has widened to include responses to natural disasters and infectious disease threats.

Even with its expanded mission and supplies, the stockpile’s “original design and its current funding do not support responding to a nationwide pandemic disease of this severity,” said Greg Burel, who was the stockpile’s director for a dozen years before he retired in January.

Knicks owner James Dolan tests positive for coronavirus
The Knicks announced Dolan’s positive test in a statement Saturday, noting that the 64-year-old New York native remains on the job, and that he is in self-isolation while displaying “little to no symptoms.”

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson are back home
Beloved actor Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, are back in their Los Angeles home, after recovering from the novel coronavirus infection in Australia. “We’re home now and, like the rest of America, we carry on with sheltering in place and social distancing,” the 63-year-old actor tweeted, thanking medical staff in Australia for his and Wilson’s return.

Shinzo Abe warns of ‘explosive spread’ of coronavirus in Japan
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday warned that an “explosive spread” of coronavirus infections was looming over the country and urged citizens to prepare for a “long-term battle."

In an evening news conference, Abe said cases of unknown origin were spiking, especially in the urban hubs of Tokyo and Osaka, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

“An uncontrollable chain of infection could lead to explosive spread somewhere,” he said.

The world’s biggest lockdown has forced migrants in India to walk hundreds of miles home.
Workers set out on foot in the wee hours of the morning for villages hundreds of miles away, walking along the roads they helped build and past apartment towers they helped raise.

Chandra Mohan, a 24-year-old plumber in a suburb of India’s capital, left at 3 a.m. on Friday. By midmorning, he had walked 28 miles, one bag on his back and another slung across his chest. He still had more than 600 miles to go to reach his home in the state of Bihar.

Mohan is one of thousands of people leaving India’s largest cities one footstep at a time, fleeing a pandemic in a historic exodus. There are no planes, no trains, no interstate buses and no taxis. So Mohan walked east with 17 other young men, all laborers like him. They were unsure of their route or where they would sleep or how they would eat, but one thing was certain: Without work, they cannot survive in the city.

“We’re doomed,” Mohan said bitterly. “If we don’t die of the disease, we’ll die of hunger.”

India has begun a 21-day nationwide lockdown — the biggest in the world — in a desperate bid to stop the coronavirus from spreading out of control in this densely populated nation of 1.3 billion people. There are more than 700 confirmed cases in India, a number that is rising rapidly. Nonessential businesses are shut, state borders are closed to regular traffic, and people have been asked to stay in their homes except to buy food or medicine.

To shepherd the Japanese economy through the pandemic, Abe pledged to put together an emergency spending package bigger than the stimulus plan Japan approved after the 2008 financial crisis, Japan Today reported. He also called for heightened vigilance from the public as Japan works to stave off a surge of infections that could devastate the country’s large elderly population.

For now, Abe said he will hold off on declaring a state of emergency.

Abe’s remarks came after Japan tallied a record increase of 123 coronavirus infections in a single day, 60 of which emerged in Tokyo. Testing has lagged in the country, which has reported about 1,500 confirmed cases and at least 49 deaths.