New York City has more cases than China, UK

Washington: New York City, the epicenter of the COVID19 pandemic in the US, now alone has over 100,000 novel coronavirus cases, more than the confirmed cases in China and the UK, according to the official data.

According to the data from the New York City government, an increase of at least 5,695 cases on Sunday put New York City's total number of coronavirus infections at over 104,410 as of April 12 and 27,676 hospitalisations.

The city's death toll is 6,898. New York City now has more coronavirus cases than China and the UK. According to estimates by Johns Hopkins University, there are 85,208 coronavirus cases in the UK, 83,135 in China and 71,686 in Iran.

The US has 557,300 cases and over 22,000 people have died so far.

Globally the number of COVID19 cases is over 1.8 million and 114,185 people have died from the disease.

More than 189,000 cases have been reported in New York state, the hardest-hit state in the US, and the death toll now stands at 9385. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters on Sunday that the past week was a "very, very tough" one in the city's hospitals.

"And we have never, ever underestimated this enemy we're fighting. Coronavirus is ferocious and has presented us with challenges that we have never ever seen before. And that certainly our nation has not seen anything like in a century."

He said while it was a "tough and painful week' for New York City, it was not as worse as had been initially expected. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said 758 more people died in the state from coronavirus in a 24-hour period, describing it as "terrible news" even as the infection rate continues to slow and stressed he will work with New Jersey and Connecticut on a coordinated plan to reopen the economy that also safeguards public health.

The state is witnessing mixed results as change in total number of hospitalisations is down but the ICU admissions and intubations ticked up. "You're not seeing a great decline in the numbers, but you're seeing a flattening.

And you're also seeing a recurrence of the terrible news, which is the number of lives lost, which is 758" on April 11. Cuomo said the big question on everyone's mind is when will the economy reopen.

"People want to get on with their lives, people want to get out of the house. (They have) cabin fever. We need the economy working, people need a paycheck. Life has to function,' he said at his daily briefing Sunday.

The Governor stressed that he wants to reopen the state and the economy as soon as possible.

"Let's just end this nightmare right. (It's like) Groundhog Day. You get up every day, it's the same routine, you almost lose track of what day of the week it is because they don't even have meaning anymore,' he said making a reference to the movie.

Cuomo underscored that the "caveat' in re-opening the economy is that one has to be "smart in the way we reopen' and there is need for a coordinated, regional and safe approach.

"Nobody wants to pick between a public health strategy and an economic strategy. And as governor of the state, I'm not going to pick one over the other, we need a public health strategy that is safe, consistent with an economic strategy.'

He emphasised that the last thing New York needs is an uptick in the infection rate and hospitalization numbers that the state has worked so hard to bring down.

Reopening the state and moving people back in the workforce would require more and faster testing as well as federal help.