The number of cases of Covid-19 in the United States has now passed the 5 million mark – the total population of New Zealand.
And its number of deaths is equivalent to the entire population of Hamilton.
There have now been 5,032,299 cases of the virus in the US and 162,751 people have died, according to tracking data from Johns Hopkins University.
While the population of the US is far bigger – at 330,000,000 – the scale of the coronavirus crisis there is clear and Donald Trump’s administration has been widely criticised for its handling of the pandemic.
President Trump has been eager to open the economy back up but many states are now seeing a new rise in cases. There were 56,000 new cases in the past 24 hours.
New Zealand has had a total of 1,219 Covid-19 cases and 22 deaths, Ministry of Health figures show. There are currently 23 cases of the virus, all in managed isolation units and there has been no community transmission for 100 days.
However, health authorities are warning against complacency, with Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield last week warning that new cases in the community are inevitable.
The New Zealand population was 5,002,100 at the end of March this year, according to Stats NZ, while the population of Hamilton, New Zealand’s fourth biggest city, was 160,911 at the 2018 Census.
The US rate of Covid-19 cases relative to population is about 100 times that of New Zealand.
