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U.S. COVID deaths top 250,000 as New York City schools halt in-person classes

19 November 2020 07:33 (UTC +04:00)

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 surpassed a grim new milestone of 250,000 lives lost on Wednesday, as New York City’s public school system, the nation’s largest, called a halt to in-classroom instruction, citing a jump in coronavirus infection rates, APA reports quoting Reuters.

The decision to shutter schools and revert exclusively to at-home learning, starting on Thursday, came as state and local officials nationwide imposed restrictions on social and economic life to tamp down a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations heading into winter.

But eight months after New York City emerged as the nation’s first major flashpoint of the epidemic - its hospitals besieged and streets virtually devoid of human activity - the epicenter of the public health crisis has shifted to the upper Midwest.

Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, one of several states in the region dogged by the country’s highest case rates per capita, ordered all restaurants, bars, fitness centers and entertainment venues closed, and all youth sports canceled, for four weeks.

More than 90% of hospitals’ intensive-care unit beds are already occupied in the eastern half of the state, Walz told an evening news briefing, adding: “We are at a dangerous point in this pandemic.”