Corona Virus updates ; Italy surpasses China's death toll; CDC warns young people; US deaths at 154.

  Corona Virus updates ; Italy surpasses China's death toll; CDC warns young people; US deaths at 154.

   

Italy's death toll surpassed China's on Thursday, while in the U.S. health officials warned the coronavirus can be dangerous for young people, too, as the life-altering pandemic continued to rattle the world.

The hunt for a medical remedy intensified. Food and Drug Commissioner Stephen Hahn said it could take “three to six months” to develop new therapies to fight the  coronavirus. The agency is also scouring several currently approved drugs.

The global death toll passed 9,700; there were more than 230,000 confirmed cases. In the U.S., deaths jumped to 154 across 22 states – including the first reported fatalities in Connecticut, Michigan, Missouri and Pennsylvania. There were more than 10,750 confirmed cases, up from about 1,600 a week earlier, when there were 40 reported deaths.

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Italy surpasses China for most deaths

Italy marked a grim milestone Thursday as its death toll from the global coronavirus outbreak surpassed China's. Italy's total of 3,405 includes an average of more than 350 deaths a day since March 15, according to world  Health Organization data.The country has the world's second-oldest population after Japan, and most of the dead are from its elderly population.

A number of other factors are also being blamed for the virus's ferocious grip on Italy. They include an utterly overwhelmed health care system and a failure to quickly impose a national lockdown. Italy represents a stark illustration of how the virus has swept through communities at breakneck speed, upending daily routines and threatening to usher in the most serious economic recession in decades.