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In the U.S., deaths attributed to Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, have soared from about 4,000 at the start of April to more than 63,000 late Thursday, according to the Johns Hopkins data. The total exceeded some previous projections, a sign of the difficulty governments face in calculating the severity of the outbreak. Between 8 p.m. Wednesday and the same time Thursday, 1,984 people in the U.S. died from Covid-19, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins data, a fairly typical tally in recent weeks. (Calfas, Ballhaus and Jamerson, 5/1)

When STAT first compared projected U.S. deaths from Covid-19, in early April, there seemed to be a glimmer of good news: A prominent model had just lowered its estimate for total deaths through Aug. 4 from about 100,000 to 60,000, reflecting the apparent success of three weeks of social distancing across much of the country. On Wednesday, April 29, the country blew past 60,000, more than three months before the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projected. (Begley and Empinado, 4/30)

The new coronavirus is likely to keep spreading for at least another 18 months to two years—until 60% to 70% of the population has been infected, a team of longstanding pandemic experts predicted in a report released Thursday. They recommended that the US prepare for a worst-case scenario that includes a second big wave of coronavirus infections in the fall and winter. Even in a best-case scenario, people will continue to die from the virus, they predicted. (Fox, 5/1)

The Trump administration placed orders for more than 100,000 new body bags for coronavirus victims in April, according to documents and public records obtained by NBC News. The largest order of body bags was placed via purchase order the day after Trump said that the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus might not exceed 50,000 or 60,000 people. (Moreno, 4/30)

That batch is a pending $5.1 million purchase order placed by the Department of Homeland Security on April 21 with E.M. Oil Transport Inc. of Montebello, California, which advertises construction vehicles, building materials and electronics on its website. The "human remains pouches" have not been paid for or shipped to the Federal Emergency Management Agency yet, according to the company's marketing manager, Mike Pryor. "I hope to God that they don't need my order and that they cancel it," Pryor said in a text message exchange with NBC News. (Allen, McCausland and Farivar, 4/30)

The Department of Veterans Affairs ordered nearly $300,000 worth of body bags this month, according to a contracting document reviewed by POLITICO. The department ordered the body bags from a major contractor called ISO Group because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the site. The contract was reached on April 15. The order came as the VA has seen a growing number of deaths due to the pandemic. More than 8,500 patients of the VA have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and nearly 500 have died, according to data on the department’s website Thursday morning. (Woodruff Swan, 4/30)

New York politicians are seeking answers on how to handle the growing number of corpses left by the coronavirus pandemic, after dozens of bodies were discovered decomposing in rental trucks outside a Brooklyn funeral home. New York Police Department officers, responding to a 911 caller, discovered dozens of corpses in body bags piled inside two vehicles outside Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Services in the Flatlands neighborhood Wednesday morning, police officials said. (Chapman, 4/30)

The 40-foot trailer has been there for weeks, parked outside the Leo F. Kearns Funeral Home in Queens. Its refrigerator hums in an alley next to a check-cashing establishment. Thirty-six bodies, one atop the other, are stacked on shelves inside. The funeral director, Patrick Kearns, has barely slept since the day he took charge of them. As he lies awake in the middle of the night, he knows there will be more. “It weighs on you, having so many cases in your care,” he said. “The death rate is just so high, there’s no way we can bury or cremate them fast enough.” (Feuer and Rashbaum, 4/30)

At Towers Funeral Home in Long Island, New York, grim signs of the coronavirus pandemic are all around. In a room previously used as one of the chapels, empty coffins are stacked -- tragic reminders of the toll the virus has taken on Nassau County, where the funeral home is located and where more than 2,000 people have died. In another chapel, stored under intense air conditioning, are the bodies of those lost, mostly to the virus. (Torres, 5/1)