The global coronavirus pandemic death toll topped 30,000 on Saturday, with the U.S. and France each posting more than 2,000 deaths, while Spain recorded its deadliest day, with 832 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.
Italy, which has seen more than 10,000 deaths, accounts for a third of the global total.
In Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak originated late last year, the city slowly began to reopen after months of near-total isolation. Thousands of people began arriving Saturday in the city in Hubei province.
There are now more than 660,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide. The number of confirmed cases in the United States rose to 115,000 Saturday. The U.S. became the country with the most cases Friday, when it passed the 100,000 threshold.
New York, with more than 52,000 confirmed cases of the virus and more than 700 deaths, is the largest hot spot of COVID-19 activity in the U.S.
To help ease the burden on New York City’s health care system, which is being overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Navy is sending a hospital ship to New York Harbor to help care for non-coronavirus patients.
President Donald Trump traveled to Norfolk, Virginia, Saturday for the sendoff of the USNS Comfort. The ship, with 1,200 service members aboard, is to arrive in New York on Monday. It will provide up to 1,000 beds to care for patients.
During remarks in Virginia, Trump said the Comfort “is a 70,000-ton message of hope and solidarity to the incredible people of New York, a place I know very well. A place I love.”
Trump also said he was considering a quarantine of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, which is being hard-hit by COVID-19 cases. But he had backed away from such a move by late Saturday, instead urging the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to consider a “strong travel advisory” for the tri-state area.
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