New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called on healthcare workers across the U.S. to help New York's rash of coronavirus cases and the nation's premiere public health expert vigorously defended President Donald Trump's decision to extend social distancing measures as a battle to contain the coronavirus gained steam Monday.

"Help New York," Cuomo said. "We are the ones who are hit now."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN that coronavirus infections and deaths in New York and elsewhere have not begun decreasing "within the time frame that was originally estimated." Fauci said he showed Trump the data and the president quickly agreed with the recommendation to extend the guidelines through the end of April.

"It would not have been a good idea to pull back at a time when you really needed to be pressing your foot on the pedal as opposed to on the brakes," Fauci said.

The U.S. death total surpassed 2,800 people; there were more than 153,000 confirmed cases Monday, according to the Johns Hopkins University data dashboard. Just last week, Trump said he wanted the country – most notably, the economy – “raring to go” by Easter. That was before Fauci said Sunday that 100,000 to 200,000 Americans could die because of the virus.

The global death count was more than 36,800 Monday, and there were more than 766,000 confirmed cases.

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/30/coronavirus-updates-deaths-cases-social-distancing-rules-fauci/2936249001/