U.S. infections grow in hotspots

NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans rushed to build a makeshift hospital in its convention center Friday as troubling new outbreaks bubbled in the United States, deaths surged in Italy and Spain and the world warily trudged through the pandemic that has sickened more than a half-million people.

While New York remained the worst hit in the U.S., Americans braced for worsening conditions elsewhere, with worrisome infection numbers being reported in cities including New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit.

"We are not through this. We're not even halfway through this," said Joseph Kanter of the Louisiana Department of Health, which has recorded more than 2,700 cases, more than five times what it had a week ago.

New Orleans' sprawling Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, along the Mississippi River, was being converted into a massive hospital as officials prepared for thousands more patients than they could accommodate. The preparations immediately conjured images of another disaster, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the convention center became a squalid shelter of last resort in a city that has braved a string of storm hits, not to mention great fires and a yellow fever epidemic in centuries past.

As the new health crisis loomed, economic catastrophe had already arrived in the city, where many already live in poverty and the tourism industry has screeched to a halt.

"I've never been unemployed. But now, all of a sudden: Wop!" said John Moore, the musician best known as Deacon John, who has no gigs to perform with much of the city shut down. "It ain't just me. It's everybody."

The U.S. now has 85,996 confirmed cases, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. Italy, the U.S.. and China account for nearly half the world's more than 575,000 infections and more than half of the roughly 26,000 reported virus deaths.

Analysts warned that all those infection figures could be low for reasons that varied in each nation.

"China numbers can't be trusted because the government lies," American political scientist Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group think-tank, said in a tweet. "U.S. numbers can't be trusted because the government can't produce enough tests."

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

Johns Hopkins reported more than 128,000 people have recovered, about half in China.

New York state, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, reported 100 more deaths in one day, accounting for almost 30% of the 1,300 fatalities nationwide. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the number of deaths will increase soon as critically ill patients who have been on ventilators for days succumb.

"That is a situation where people just deteriorate over time," Cuomo said.