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U.S. surpasses grim milestone of 200,000 COVID-19 deaths
The death toll from the spread of the coronavirus in the United States exceeded 200,000 on Tuesday, by the far the highest number of any nation.
The United States, on a weekly average, is now losing about 800 lives each day to the virus, according to a Reuters tally. That is down from a peak of 2,806 daily deaths recorded on April 15.
During the early months of the pandemic, 200,000 deaths was regarded by many as the maximum number of lives likely to be lost in the United States to the virus.
On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he had done a phenomenal job on the pandemic that has infected nearly 6.9 million Americans.
How a party in an Ottawa park became a COVID-19 super-spreader event
Just days after the province moved to limit the size of social gatherings to reduce the spread of COVID-19, Ottawa’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches offered a real-life example Monday of how gatherings can quickly become super-spreader events — even when held outdoors.
Speaking to Ottawa’s board of health, Etches described the COVID-19 fallout from a recent party held in an Ottawa park.
Forty people gathered in a park, she said. Two of them went on to develop COVID-19 symptoms. Those two cases eventually caused outbreaks in households, a workplace and a daycare and led to 27 confirmed cases among family members, colleagues childcare staff and students. The fallout continued. Eventually some of those infected came in contact with dozens of students on two school buses and at two schools.
