Trump wobbles as New York becomes coronavirus epicentre

A record single-day death toll of 779 taking the total count to 6000 and counting. Nearly 1,50,000 active cases. This is the tally for New York alone. The United States' most populous city.

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The world's financial capital and now global coronavirus epicentre. New york's COVID-19 numbers have surpassed that of Spain's.

To make the matters worse, authorities have flagged the possibility of under-counting.

The situation is a grim reminder of 9/11.

New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo said: "I mean, I went through a 9/11 I thought in my lifetime, I wouldn't have to see anything like that again."

The city's hospitals are inundated. Patients are now being treated at churches.

There has been a fall in the hospitalisation, experts say that the curve may also be flattening but authorities are wary of striking a note too optimistic.

"Be careful of counting our chickens before they hatch. We haven't seen cases yet. We are in the midst of this. Don't start doing a retrospective like it's over because that's the attitude we have to avoid," added Cuomo.

New Yorkers know its not over, in fact, far from it.

Alix Monteleone, a 28-year-old, experiential account supervisor, said: "This is very real. And we're seeing so much chaos manifest outside of our home that we can't imagine how bad it is inside. You know, we stopped counting how many bodies came out."

The number of cases in the United States has crossed 4,35,000 and the death toll is nearing 15,000.

The US has been the hardest hit by the pandemic.

President Donald Trump's weapon of choice is denial. He says social distancing is working, Trump said: "What we've accomplished, if every American continues to strictly adhere to social distancing guidelines, we can defeat the invisible enemy and save countless lives that we can do it much more quickly."

The reality is thousands of Americans are flouting social distancing norms and the reality is a shortage of test kits, so much so that, frontline workers are being denied tests. That is, unless, they show severe symptoms

Fixating over hydroxychloroquine.The reality is also apathy at the highest level.

According to the US Media, the White House was warned about a possible pandemic as early as November 2019.

The president sat on this putting millions of lives at risk and months later.

President Donald Trump said: "So you're talking about 2.2 million deaths, 2.2 million people from this. And so if we could hold that down, as we're saying, to 100,000, it's a horrible number, maybe even less, but to 100,000. So we have between 100 and 200,000. We altogether have done a very good job."

The good news is that the latest estimates show fewer projected deaths in the country.

Americans are cheering each other up in tough times like these, empathy and solidarity is helping them cope with the crisis.