The coronavirus outbreak in the United States is on pace to become the biggest and deadliest in the world on Tuesday. The death toll was already over 3,000 Monday night, just several hundred lower than in China. More than 500 deaths were added to the U.S. toll Monday alone.
The number of confirmed U.S. cases is already far higher than any other nation’s at about 165,000. Americans have seen their country hurtle into a war-like response that few could have envisioned: Hospital tents in Central Park with a Navy hospital ship docked nearby and another in Los Angeles, and the governor of hard-hit New York begging doctors and nurses to come help.
Thirty-two states and Washington D.C. have issued stay-at-home orders, restricting movement in a manner completely unfamiliar to modern democracy. There’s mounting evidence the economically crippling measures work, but as one World Health Organization official said Monday: “This is going to be a long-term battle and we cannot let down our guard.”
