Washington: The United States now has more than 100,000 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University showed Friday.
There have been 100,717 cases including 1,544 deaths as of 6:00 pm Eastern time (3:30 am IST). The biggest cluster by far is in New York, home to almost half the cases, overwhelming the hospital system.
The United States has around 15,000 more confirmed cases than the second country on the list, Italy, and 20,000 more than China, where the disease was first identified but has since peaked.
The US death rate based on confirmed cases is about 1.5 per cent, compared to around 10.5 per cent in Italy. This death rate figure could fall, as greater testing reveals more people who are