Covid-19 coronavirus: Heartbreaking front page in New York Times as US reaches grim milestone

In a matter of days, 100,000 Americans will have lost their lives to coronavirus, with the "incalculable" loss summed up in a heartbreaking front page. Photo / Twitter

The US will soon have lost 100,000 people to coronavirus, a heartbreaking milestone for the country.

The New York Times summed up the staggering loss in a powerful front page, listing 1000 of the Americans who had lost their lives to the virus, news.com.au reports.

"They were not simply names on a list, they were us," the front page reads, describing the deaths as an "incalculable loss".

The US leads the world with a reported 1.6 million coronavirus cases and more than 96,000 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The front page has attracted attention worldwide. Some label it "gut-wrenching" and others simply thanked the paper.

They were us.

The people listed on the cover of the @nytimes are only 1% of those lost to a horrible virus. It is gut wrenching to acknowledge such a great loss. As we inch toward recovery, let us remember that they once lived among us and fought valiantly. https://t.co/Df9R4xQLVx

— Chirlane McCray (@NYCFirstLady) May 23, 2020

The New York Times - rare to see a front page deliver such a gut punch #coronavirus #coronavirusUSA pic.twitter.com/iTgT6B8Nlw

— Nick Bryant (@NickBryantNY) May 23, 2020

This @nytimes cover truly shocked me.

I think it serves as a grim and honest reminder that we are not dealing with statistics here. These are people who loved and were loved, had plans.

These are the names of 100,000 people who had their futures wiped away. pic.twitter.com/vha4TlMkBc

— Grace Reader (@GraceReaderTV) May 23, 2020

US President Donald Trump has played golf for the first time since he declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency more than two months ago, leading to the shutdown of much of American society.

His return to the course on Saturday was the latest sign that he wants the country back to pre-outbreak times, even as the US death toll from the virus nears 100,000, twice what he once predicted it would be.

But the president has been accused of hypocrisy after a handful of tweets from 2014 resurfaced.

Trump levied frequent criticism of Barack Obama's regular golf outings when he was president.

"Can you believe that with all of the problems and difficulties facing the US, President Obama spent the day playing golf. Worse than Carter," Trump tweeted in October 2014 during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

President Obama has a major meeting on the N.Y.C. Ebola outbreak, with people flying in from all over the country, but decided to play golf!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2014

The golf outing came a day after Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force co-ordinator, said that it was okay for people to be outside this weekend as long as they took appropriate safety precautions.

Trump pulled away from the White House on a sunny morning wearing a white polo shirt, white cap and dark slacks.

Photographs showed him swinging a golf club and driving alone in a cart on the course at his private Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.

The White House had no comment on the President's activities at the club, but said he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had discussed the pandemic's effect on the global economy on Saturday.

The golf trip was the president's first to one of his money-making properties since March 8, when he visited his private club in West Palm Beach during a weekend at his Florida home.