The coronavirus death toll in the United States climbed by 1,903 in 24 hours to reach 39,115 this morning, latest statistics show.
Confirmed cases of the highly infectious illness also soared to a total of 741,866 as of early Sunday morning, up 28,486 from the day before.
The US has the highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths of any country in the world.
Global coronavirus cases have surged past 2.25 million with 154,000 deaths.
Japan also reported a fresh surge of 556 new cases on Saturday, pushing its total to over 10,000.
Despite the ominous statistics, President Trump cited ‘positive signs’ in the fight against the pandemic on Saturday, believing the worst is now over.
‘We continue to see a lot of positive signs that the virus has passed its peak,’ Trump said, just days after the White House issued guidelines for the gradual reopening of the country.
Residents in Florida and other states returned to the beach Saturday despite an increase in COVID-19 deaths and infections.
Meanwhile, three Northeastern states reopened boatyards and marinas for personal use only.
Other states are expected to gradually ease lockdown restrictions while other states, such as New York, have issued no indication that measures will be relaxed any time soon.
The state’s Governor Andrew Cuomo did share some ‘good news’ for New Yorkers on Saturday though, revealing in his daily press briefing that daily deaths, hospitalizations, intubations and ICU admissions fell for a third consecutive day.
As the nation’s crisis epicenter seems to have reached its peak, Cuomo announced that 504 people died from coronavirus Friday, the lowest death toll since April 1 and far lower than the state’s peak of 806 on April 7.
The governor went on to make a series of thinly-veiled digs at Trump, in which he recited Lincoln’s famous quote – ‘a house divided itself cannot stand’ – and reminded him ‘that’s why we’re called the “United” States.’
His comments come after he blasted the president Friday, mocking his demand for gratitude for federal help and saying: ‘Thank you for doing your job’.
In Saturday’s update, Cuomo warned that although the falling death toll is promising, New York still has some dark days ahead as ‘540 families’ still lost their loved ones in a single day, including 36 across the state’s nursing homes.
‘It’s not as high as it was but still 540 people died yesterday,’ he said.
‘It’s 540 people, 540 families.’
Total hospitalizations are also down from around 18,000 to almost 16,000 and emergency rooms are less crowded, Cuomo continued.
‘We increased hospital capacity by 53 percent’ and that capacity is now falling, he said.
Cuomo said the figures show that New York has gone past its peak and is now on a curve down to where it was late-March when cases and deaths started to rise.
‘We’re down now for several days. The statisticians will say have we passed the apex? Have we hit the plateau and flattened for a period of time?’ he said.
He added: ‘If you look at the past three days you could argue that we are past the plateau and we’re starting to descend which is very good news.’
The number of people being intubated when they come into the state’s hospitals has also fallen which Cuomo said is ‘very good news’.
‘The probability is about 80 percent won’t come off ventilators when they go on them so [the fall in numbers] is very good news,’ he said.
ICU admissions have also fallen, Cuomo said, before adding that he does ‘not know why we include this’.
After a week in what Trump described as an indicator that the worst of the crisis is behind us, the president says he will now shift his focus to kickstarting an economic recovery after four-weeks of lockdowns.
But Democratic governors and health experts have warned the president about taking acting too prematurely, who warn that reopening the economy too quickly could lead to a ‘second wave’ of infections.
There are now more than 2.3 million cases of coronavirus worldwide, and over 160,000 recorded deaths.
With the US now burdened with the unfavorable accolade of being the country with the highest coronavirus infection and death rate of any country on earth, President Trump blasted China on Sunday, calling the country’s official coronavirus death statistics ‘impossible’.
The sentiment was echoed by Dr Deborah Birx, who concurred that Beijing failed its ‘moral obligation’ for transparency in the pandemic.
At a White House briefing on Saturday, Dr Birx was presenting a chart with coronavirus mortality rates by country when Trump interjected, saying ‘does anybody really believe this number?’