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U.S. coronavirus deaths topped 80,000 on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, as nearly all states have taken steps to relax lockdown measures. Deaths in the United States, the epicenter of the global pandemic, have averaged 2,000 a day since mid-April despite efforts to slow the outbreak. The death toll is higher than any fatalities from the seasonal flu going back to 1967 and represents more U.S. deaths than during the first eight years of the AIDS epidemic, from 1981 to 1988. (Shumaker, 5/11)

The death toll has already surpassed the most optimistic epidemiologic model, the one produced by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and touted by the White House, which projected 64,000 deaths by Aug 1. That model has since been adjusted to take into account the easing of social distancing measures, and now projects 137,000 US deaths by Aug 1. (Soucheray, 5/11)

New York City’s death toll from the coronavirus may be thousands of fatalities worse than the tally kept by the city and state, according to an analysis released Monday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Between March 11 and May 2, about 24,000 more people died in the city than researchers would ordinarily expect during that time period, the report said. That’s about 5,300 more deaths than were blamed on the coronavirus in official tallies during those weeks. (Mustian, 5/12)

The CDC’s total is 5,293 deaths higher than official New York City reports over the same period, which showed 13,831 laboratory-confirmed deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, and 5,048 probable Covid-19-related deaths. CDC officials said the agency’s larger death toll included fatalities likely attributable to health problems caused by Covid-19 as well as other factors attributable to the pandemic, such as shortages of medical care. (Chapman, 5/11)

Those may include people who suffered from the coronavirus but did not have it noted on their death certificate. In other cases, the primary cause may be something else, but exacerbated by a coronavirus infection. In particular, there has been a surge in cardiac arrests — and officials are probing whether many of the heart attacks were caused by the coronavirus. (Eisenberg, 5/11)

Those findings add to a growing body of evidence highlighting how the pandemic may be killing Americans without ever infecting them. For example, experts have also said that a decline in reported heart attacks and strokes across the country is likely the result of people avoiding emergency rooms. (Maxouris and Azad, 5/12)

“We’re now on the other side of the mountain,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at his daily news briefing. “Next step, how do we reopen? How do we reopen intelligently? And how do we reopen without taking a step back?” As the number of coronavirus-related deaths in the nation surpassed 80,000, the number of deaths in New York dipped to 161 and the number of new coronavirus infections to 488 in the last 24 hours, levels last seen in March, he said. Cuomo’s statewide stay-at-home order ends Friday. (Mehta, 5/11)

Although some hope the worst of California’s coronavirus crisis has passed, there are signs the pandemic in the Golden State has merely stabilized, and the worst may be yet to come. The number of weekly COVID-19 deaths in California has hit a stubborn plateau, and the number of cases has not begun a sustained week-over-week decline, a Los Angeles Times analysis has found. For the seven-day period that ended Sunday, 503 people in California died from the virus — the second-highest weekly death toll in the course of the pandemic and a 1.6% increase from the previous week. (Lin and Lee, 5/11)