WASHINGTON/NEW YORK : The US government raced to build hundreds of makeshift hospitals to ease the strain on overwhelmed healthcare systems as the United States marked 700 deaths in a single day from COVID-19 for the first time on Tuesday.
That is the equivalent of a person dying every two minutes. Nearly half those deaths were in New York state, still the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded for reinforcements from the Trump administration, saying the worst may still be weeks away. "This is the point at which we must be prepared for next week when we expect a huge increase in the number of cases.