The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States topped 500,000 on Friday as health officials reported the highest number of death in a single day.
As of Friday evening, 18,637 people in the United States have died of coronavirus, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, an increase of 1,953 deaths from Thursday. Worldwide, there are 1.69 million confirmed cases and more than 102,000 reported deaths.
The grim milestone comes as researchers warned that lifting social distancing measures too soon could lead to a setback in the pandemic mitigation.
The latest version of an influential model tracking the coronavirus pandemic estimated the US will see peak daily death numbers on Friday instead of Sunday.
The peak use of resources — like hospital beds and ventilators — will be on or around Saturday as suggested earlier this week, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle.
States like New York and New Jersey may have already passed their peaks this week, but Florida and Texas could see the worst by the end of the month, according to the IHME model.
Dr. Chris Murray, director at the IHME, said that even if the country sees a decrease in the number of deaths, ending mitigation efforts — like stay-at-home orders or social distancing — could have a negative effect by the summer.
“If we were to stop at the national level by May 1, we are seeing (in models) a return to almost where we are now sometime in July,” Murray said on CNN’s AC360.
The IHME’s modeling also estimates more people will die from coronavirus than previously predicted.
On Wednesday, the IHME estimated that 60,415 in the US would die of coronavirus by August, assuming social distancing policies continue through May. On Friday, that estimate increased to 61,500.
White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said health officials seeing a leveling of the curve for the first time since the pandemic hit the country but urged Americans to continue mitigation efforts.
“So it’s really about the encouraging signs that we see, but as encouraging as they are, we have not reached the peak, and so every day we need to continue to do what we did yesterday, and the week before, and the week before that,” Birx said at a White House news conference on Friday.
