A six-week-old infant, who died last week, has been confirmed to be positive for COVID-19 in the US state of Connecticut. The number of deaths due to the virus in the US has reached 5,116. On Wednesday, 884 people died from coronavirus in the US in 24 hours, a record for a single day.
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont tweeted that the newborn was "brought unresponsive to a hospital late last week and could not be revived."
"Testing confirmed last night that the newborn was COVID-19 positive," Lamont said on Wednesday and added, "This is absolutely heartbreaking. We believe this is one of the youngest lives lost anywhere due to complications relating to COVID-19." It wasn’t clear if the newborn had any underlying health conditions.
The fast-spreading virus is believed to be more dangerous for older adults, though, it also seems to be sending younger patients to hospitals.
Governor Lamont further said that this stresses the importance of staying home and limiting exposure to other people.
New York State, which Connecticut borders, has been particularly hard hit by COVID-19, accounting for nearly 2,000 of the US deaths. The death toll for the US is higher than the 3,316 deaths recorded in China, but, lower than the figures in Spain and Italy.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said, “we're going to have a couple of weeks, starting pretty much now, but especially a few days from now, that are going to be horrific." He added that the country needed to brace itself for at least 100,000 deaths.
World Health Organization director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was quoted by a CNBC report as saying he was “deeply concerned about the rapid escalation and global spread” of the coronavirus outbreak.
“The number of deaths has more than doubled in the past week. In the next few days, we will reach one million confirmed cases and 50,000 deaths,” he added.
