https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-west-virginia-first-case-ac32ce6d-5523-4310-a219-7d1d1dcb6b44.html

The U.S. passed Italy for recorded coronavirus deaths on Saturday, per Johns Hopkins data. 18,860 Americans have died.

Where it stands: Government projections show lifting social distancing restrictions after just 30 days will lead to a dramatic infection spike this summer and death tolls would rival doing nothing, the New York Times reports.

The big picture: The coronavirus has killed more than 1,000 people every day in the U.S. since April 1, and infected over 501,000 others. New York’s death toll sits at 8,627 as of Saturday after 783 people died in 24 hours — a slight uptick from the day prior.

• Public health officials warned this would be a deadly week for America, even as New York began to see declining trends of hospitalizations and ICU admissions.
• All but eight states have issued stay-at-home orders.

What’s happening: New York hospitalizations appears to have plateaued as the state flattens the coronavirus curve, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said on Saturday. Intubations are also down, a good sign for fatalities in the state.

• Surgeon General Jerome Adams disagreed Friday that the federal government’s 30-day campaign will provide enough time for all Americans to resume their work and lifestyles.
• Smaller airlines receiving bailouts of up to $100 million won’t have to provide the federal government with compensation, the Treasury Department said.
• This Easter Sunday will be America’s biggest test yet for whether people can social distance long enough to flatten the coronavirus curve.
• Apple and Google announced a joint effort to notify people via smartphone — on an opt-in basis — if they’ve come into contact with someone with the coronavirus, without having to share users’ location information with government authorities.
• Roughly 16 million Americans have filed for jobless benefits over the past three weeks due to the pandemic’s growing economic repercussions. Trump is preparing to launch a second coronavirus task force focused on economic recovery.
• President Trump has been increasingly frustrated with the pandemic’s impact on the economy and pushed for a May 1 reopening.
• 20 cruise ships at port or anchorage in the U.S. have reported “known or suspected COVID-19 infection” among their crews, the CDC says.
• The pandemic will likely drop global carbon dioxide emissions more than any prior crisis or war.
• The U.S. expelled more than 6,000 migrants under new powers invoked by the CDC’s emergency public health order. The number of people coming into the U.S. has plummeted due to coronavirus travel bans.
• Hospitals, doctors’ offices, suppliers and other health care facilities have now received $51 billion in “advance payments” from Medicare.
• The federal government is deploying 90% of stockpiled medical equipment to fight the pandemic. These shipments aren’t enough to meet current demands from states.

Between the lines: Data on fatalities generally lag a couple of weeks behind what’s fueling the outbreak, which is mainly the number of new cases and hospitalizations, NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci told Fox News on Wednesday.

• State officials have stressed that lockdowns must continue even if cities begin to see slight improvements from social distancing.
• Coronavirus testing capacity is still far enough behind demand that the U.S. continues to only test the sickest patients, which allowed the coronavirus outbreak to spread without detection, almost certainly making it worse than it would have been otherwise.

Go deeper: In photos: Life in the era of coronavirus across the U.S.