President Donald Trump on Sunday extended the national social-distancing guidelines aimed at fighting the coronavirus pandemic to April 30, a month longer than initially scheduled and well past the Easter goal he had set for "opening up our country.''
The revamped timeline came on the same day a federal infectious disease official issued an ominous warning as New York state approached 1,000 deaths and U.S. fatalities from the coronavirus pandemic climbed past 2,500.
The U.S. death total has doubled in two days. Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been a leading voice in the effort to curb the outbreak, says 100,000 to 200,000 Americans could die before the crisis is over.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, citing "extensive community transmission" of COVID-19 in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, late Saturday urged residents to refrain from non-essential travel for 14 days effective immediately. The advisory does not apply to employees of critical infrastructure industries such as trucking, public health professionals, financial services and food supply.Just a little bit of separation can stop a fire from spreading," CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said.
The U.S. counted more than 142,000 cases of coronavirus by Sunday evening, the world's highest total, and there were 2,506 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University data dashboard. More confirmations are expected as the U.S. continues to ramp up testing.
More than 722,000 people are known to have been infected with COVID-19 globally, and almost 34,000 have died.
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