WASHINGTON: The United States suffered its biggest one-day death toll from the coronavirus to date on Friday, the day when several states started reopening businesses and eased lockdown measures.

Data released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) show that 2,909 people died in the US on Friday, surpassing the previous high of 2,471 reported on April 23 and another high of 2,407 reported on April 16. The WHO data show that 31,379 new coronavirus cases were also reported in the US on Friday.

The WHO data differ from the statistics released by the official US monitoring agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC’s site says that 2,349 people died in the US of Covid-19 on May 1.

But a CDC spokeswoman Kate Grusich told CNBC news that the agency goes through “a confirmation process” before releasing its data to the public.

A CDC press release said the agency was now launching a new system for releasing “real-time sequence data” to “help guide Covid-19 public health response … and advance understanding of this and future pandemics.”

The CDC also acknowledged that its data were “provisional”, and the agency might not have a more accurate count until December.

By Sunday afternoon, US monitoring agencies had recorded a total of 1,170,184 Covid-19 cases and more than 68,000 deaths across the United States.

Some media reports pointed out that Friday’s death toll rivals that of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which claimed the lives of 2,973 people in one day.

Such alarming statistics, however, are having little impact on the Trump administration’s eagerness to reopen businesses as it worries about the adverse effects of this prolonged lockdown on the US economy. The lockdown has caused an unprecedented unemployment and the administration worries that this could hurt its reelection chances in November’s presidential elections.

President Donald Trump indicated his desire to end the lockdown by spending the weekend at the Camp David presidential resort in Maryland. This was his first venture outside the White House in more than a month.

On Sunday night, the president will also participate in a two-hour Fox News town hall focused on the theme “America Together: Returning to Work”

The demand to reopen the economy is also backed by thousands of conservative Republicans who protested across 10 major states this weekend. President Trump supports the protests.

Public health officials have warned that the rush to end the lockdown could spread the virus to the communities that have so far been relatively safe from this epidemic.

Earlier this week, the White House blocked its top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, from appearing at a congressional hearing on America’s coronavirus response.

The House Appropriations Committee is holding a hearing on May 6 on how the US government handled the Covid-10 outbreak.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told journalists on Saturday Dr Fauci was not allowed to participate because the committee’s chairwoman Nita Lowey could not explain “what the subject matter of the hearing would be.”

Earlier on Sunday, President Trump rejected former Republican President George. W Bush’s call to overcome partisanship to fight the pandemic.

“Let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat,” Mr Bush said in a three-minute video posted on the Internet.

President Trump tweeted his response, asking why Mr Bush did not push for “putting partisanship aside” during his impeachment trial. “He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!” Mr Trump wrote.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2020