COVID-19 cases in US top 100,000: Johns Hopkins University

AFP

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States has topped 100,000, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

As of 6pm Eastern Time on Friday (10pm GMT), there have been 100, 717 confirmed cases in the United States, with 1,544 deaths, an interactive map maintained by the CSSE showed.

In the United States, New York State has been hit the hardest, with 44,870 cases, followed by the states of New Jersey and California, respectively with 8,825 cases and 4,569 cases.

Globally, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has exceeded 590,000, with nearly 27,000 deaths. More than 130,000 have recovered from the disease, according to the CSSE.

The numbers were reported a day after the United States surpassed China and Italy to become the nation with the largest number of COVID-19 cases.

While the pandemic has disrupted the US economy and people's lives, the country's doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff are dealing with a shortage of medical supplies, including personal protective equipment for themselves and ventilators for patients.

In a joint letter to the White House recently, the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, and the American Nurses Association said that they "have concerns that increasingly there are dwindling supplies of N95 respirators, isolation gowns, isolation masks, surgical masks, eye protection, intensive care unit equipment and diagnostic testing supplies in areas that had the first community outbreaks and in many other areas of the country."

"Even with an infusion of supplies from the strategic stockpile and other federal resources, there will not be enough medical supplies, including ventilators, to respond to the projected COVID-19 outbreak," the associations said. "We have heard of health care providers reusing masks or resorting to makeshift alternatives for masks."

US President Donald Trump said Friday that he had ordered General Motors to produce ventilators under the Defense Production Act, a wartime law he recently invoked to cope with the COVID-19 outbreak.

"Our negotiations with GM regarding its ability to supply ventilators have been productive, but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the give-and-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course," Trump said in a statement.

GM will build ventilators at a factory in Kokomo, Indiana, in partnership with Ventec Life Systems, according to a press release.

"Depending on the needs of the federal government, Ventec and GM are poised to deliver the first ventilators next month and ramp up to a manufacturing capacity of more than 10,000 critical care ventilators per month with the infrastructure and capability to scale further," the release said.