US cases rise but talk heats up on economy

President concedes governors have the power to reverse state lockdowns

COVID-19 cases in the United States rose above 600,000 with over 26,000 deaths as the debate over reopening the economy heats up.

The country saw 609,685 infections with 26,059 deaths as of Wednesday morning, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The hardest-hit state, New York, has recorded 202,630 infections and 10,834 deaths, followed by New Jersey with 68,824 cases and 2,805 deaths. Other states with over 20,000 infections include Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois and Louisiana.

A sailor from the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, with hundreds of coronavirus infections, died of the disease on Monday.

Four other crew members are in hospital in Guam. The carrier has been docked in the US territory for more than a week as the 4,865-person crew is tested for the virus. The sailor who died was among 585 crew members who tested positive.

"We might well be at a point in time when the number of new cases in the United States will be peaking, and beginning to decline in the country overall," said Robert Schooley, professor of medicine at the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego.

Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on the White House to reopen the US economy after a staggering 16.8 million US citizens filed initial jobless claims in a three-week period ending April 4.

During Tuesday's briefing on the epidemic in the White House, US President Donald Trump said that he intended to talk with all 50 governors this week, probably on Thursday, to discuss a national plan for reopening the country.

Trump also said that he might try to authorize reopening some states before May 1, within the federally recommended time horizon for social distancing and other mitigation measures.