(CNN)The United States will extend its set of social distancing guidelines until April 30, President Trump said in a coronavirus news briefing at the White House on Sunday. “We will be extending our guidelines to April 30 to slow the spread,” the President said. “On Tuesday, we will be finalizing these plans and providing a summary of our findings, supporting data and strategy to the American people.” As of Sunday evening there are more than 137,000 cases of coronavirus in the United States. At least 2,400 people have died. Trump’s administration issued guidelines on social distancing on March 16 aimed at containing the coronavirus outbreak. The guidance, which initially had a 15-day time frame, urged Americans to avoid groups of more than 10 and advised that older people stay home. Trump hopes the country will be on its way to recovery by June 1, he said Sunday. “A lot of great things will be happening,” the President said.
Fauci says 100,000 to 200,000 Americans could die from coronavirus
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the White House looks for ways to restore normalcy in parts of the U.S., the government’s foremost infection disease expert says the country could experience more than 100,000 deaths and millions of infections from the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, offered his prognosis as the federal government weighs rolling back guidelines on social distancing in areas that have not been as hard-hit by the outbreak at the conclusion of the nationwide 15-day effort to slow the spread of the virus.
“I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 cases,” he said, correcting himself to say he meant deaths. “We’re going to have millions of cases.” But he added “I don’t want to be held to that” because the pandemic is “such a moving target.
About 125,000 cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. had been recorded as of Sunday morning, with over 2,100 dead. It is certain that many more have the disease but their cases have not been reported. One in three Americans remain under state or local government orders to stay at home to slow the spread of the virus, with schools and businesses closed and public life upended. Dr. Deborah Birx, head of the White House coronavirus task force, said parts of the country with few cases so far must prepare for what’s to come. “No state, no metro area, will be spared,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Fauci said he would only support the rollback in lesser-impacted areas if more testing is in place to monitor those areas. He said “it’s a little iffy there” right now. Most people who contract COVID-19 have mild or moderate symptoms, which can include fever and cough but also milder cases of pneumonia, sometimes requiring hospitalization. The risk of death is greater for older adults and people with other health problems. Hospitals in the most afflicted areas are straining to handle patients and some are short of critical supplies. Fauci’s prediction would take the death toll well past that of the average seasonal flu. Trump repeatedly cited the flu’s comparatively much higher cost in lives in playing down the severity of this pandemic. Meanwhile, governors in other hotspots across the country were raising alarm that the spread of the virus was threatening their health-care systems. “We remain on a trajectory, really, to overwhelm our capacity to deliver health care,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said on ABC’s “This Week.” “By the end of the first week in April, we think the first real issue is going to be ventilators. And we think it’s about the fourth or fifth of April before, down in the New Orleans area, we’re unable to put people on ventilators who need them. And then several days later, we will be out of beds.” He said officials have orders out for more than 12,000 ventilators through the national stockpile and private vendors, but so far have only been able to get 192.
The United States now has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world, surpassing Italy and China
Donald Trump again struggled to reassure a fearful nation on Thursday as it emerged the US now has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world. News that America had surpassed virus hotspots China and Italy with 82,404 cases of infection, according to a tracker run by Johns Hopkins University, broke as the president was holding a press conference at the White House. His instinctive response was to question other countries’ statistics. “It’s a tribute to the amount of testing that we’re doing,” Trump told reporters. “We’re doing tremendous testing, and I’m sure you’re not able to tell what China is testing or not testing. I think that’s a little hard.” Trump later spoke to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, by telephone and had what he described on Twitter as a “very good conversation”. The two leaders discussed the coronavirus in “great detail”, adding that: “China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus. We are working closely together. Much respect!” While the US has increased its testing capacity in recent days the process has been flawed and incoherent, and the country still lags behind leaders such as South Korea in terms of the number of tests administered per-capita.
On a grim day, the death toll in America surpassed 1,000 and it was revealed that last week 3.3 million people filed for unemployment – the biggest single-week jump in history. The president has been widely condemned for failing to act fast enough, misjudging the public mood and seeking to blame others rather than taking personal responsibility. “It’s nobody’s fault,” Trump said of the jobless figure. “Certainly not in this country. Nobody’s fault. We got very lucky when we made a decision not to allow people in from China on a very early date. I say that because some people don’t want to accept it, but this was a great decision made by our country, or the numbers that you’re talking about – we’re a big country – they’d be far greater, far bigger.” He added: “I heard it could be six million, could be seven million. It’s 3.3 or 3.2, but it’s a lot of jobs, but I think we’ll come back very strong. The sooner we get back to work – you know, every day we stay out it gets harder to bring it back very quickly, and our people don’t want to stay out … I think you’ll see a very fast turnaround once we have a victory over the hidden enemy.” Trump told the briefing that dates for reopening sections of the country were under discussion but he notably did not refer to Easter – 12 April – as he has been pushing in recent days. Critics have long accused him of lacking compassion, pointing to examples such as when, in 2017, he lobbed paper towels at hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico. On Thursday he was asked about the thousands of restaurants going out of business, causing personal devastation to owners and staff. “I understand the restaurant business,” he claimed, describing it as “very delicate”. He went on: “You can serve 30 great meals to a person and a family … one bad meal, 31, and they never come back again. It’s a very tough business.” He added: “It may not be the same restaurant, it may not be the same ownership, but they’ll all be back.” Even as New York hospitals become overwhelmed, with doctors complaining of nightmarish conditions, and cases spike in cities such as New Orleans, Trump continued to talk down the threat from the virus. “Many people have it. I just spoke to two people that had it. They never went to a doctor, they didn’t report it … The people that actually die, that percentage is much lower than I actually thought.” Continue reading “The United States now has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world, surpassing Italy and China”
Italy expects drop in new coronavirus cases soon – official
Italian Deputy Health Minister Pierpaolo Sileri stated on Sunday that the country’s lockdown measures are “starting to work” and that the number of new coronavirus cases is likely to drop soon. “We are living in the peak of this epidemic,” Sileri told BBC’s Andrew Marr and noted the jump in the number of reported infections over the past few days came as a result of more tests being carried out.
“I believe in one week’s time, 10 days maximum, we will see a drop in positive cases,” he added.
On Saturday, Italy’s COVID-19 death toll climbed by 889 to 10,023 as it remained the country with most fatalities. The total number of coronavirus cases reached 92,472, making Italy the most affected country after the United States.
North Korea test fires missiles amid worries about outbreak
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Sunday fired two suspected ballistic missiles into the sea, South Korea and Japan said, continuing a streak of weapons launches that suggests leader Kim Jong Un is trying to strengthen domestic support amid worries about a possible coronavirus outbreak in the country. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the projectiles flying from the North Korean eastern coastal city of Wonsan into the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan on Sunday morning. The projectiles flew about 230 kilometers (143 miles) at a maximum altitude of 30 kilometers (19 miles), the statement said. The military described the launches as “very inappropriate” at a time when the world is battling the coronavirus outbreak. It urged North Korea to stop such military action. Japan’s Defense Ministry said that presumed ballistic missiles were believed to have splashed into the sea outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone. “Recent repeated firings of ballistic missiles by North Korea is a serious problem to the entire international community including Japan,” a ministry statement said.
In recent weeks, North Korea has fired a slew of missiles and artillery shells into the sea in an apparent effort to upgrade its military capability amid deadlocked nuclear talks with the United States.
Those weapons were all short range and capable of striking South Korea, but didn’t pose a direct threat to the U.S. homeland. Some experts say the latest North Korean launches were likely designed to shore up unity and show that leader Kim Jong Un is in control in the face of U.S.-led sanctions and the global pandemic. Kim “wants to show he rules in a normal way amid the coronavirus (pandemic) and his latest weapons tests were aimed at rallying unity internally, not launching a threat externally,” said Kim Dong-yub, an analyst at Seoul’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies. “North Korea doesn’t have time now to spare for staging (external threats).” North Korea has been engaged in an intense campaign to prevent the spread of the virus that has infected more than 660,000 worldwide. It has called its campaign a matter of “national existence” but has steadfastly denied there has been a single virus outbreak on its soil. Many foreign experts question that claim, warning an epidemic in North Korea could be dire because of its chronic lack of medical supplies and poor health care infrastructure. A week ago, North Korea said President Donald Trump sent a personal letter to Kim, seeking to maintain good relations and offering cooperation in fighting the outbreak. A North Korean state media dispatch didn’t say whether Trump mentioned any of the latest weapons tests by the North. Kim Jong Un has vowed to boost internal strength to withstand what he calls “gangsters-like” U.S.-led sanctions that are stifling his country’s economy. His nuclear diplomacy with Trump faltered after the American president turned down his calls for broad sanctions relief in exchange for a limited denuclearization step during their second summit in Vietnam in early 2009. North Korea hasn’t carried out nuclear or long-range missile tests since it began talks with the United States in 2018. A resumption of a major weapons test by North Korea risks completely disrupting the negotiations.
‘Officers are scared out there’: Coronavirus hits US police
WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (AP) — More than a fifth of Detroit’s police force is quarantined; two officers have died from coronavirus and at least 39 have tested positive, including the chief of police. For the 2,200-person department, that has meant officers working doubles and swapping between units to fill patrols. And everyone has their temperature checked before they start work. An increasing number of police departments around the country are watching their ranks get sick as the number of coronavirus cases explodes across the U.S. The growing tally raises questions about how laws can and should be enforced during the pandemic, and about how departments will hold up as the virus spreads among those whose work puts them at increased risk of infection. “I don’t think it’s too far to say that officers are scared out there,” said Sgt. Manny Ramirez, president of Fort Worth Police Officers Association. “We’re in war footing against an invisible enemy and we are on the verge of running out” of protective supplies, said Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. “We’ve got hospitals calling police departments, police departments calling each other, and it’s time to nationalize in terms of our response.” police must prepare for the possibility of civil unrest among people who become anxious or unhappy about government orders or hospitals that get overrun with patients, he said. In big cities and remote areas alike, officers are being told to issue tickets or summons rather than making arrests for minor crimes. More crime reports are being taken by phone or online. These steps to limit exposure come as police must beef up patrols in shuttered business districts and manage spikes in domestic violence.
As U.S. virus cases exceed 100,000, doctors decry scarcity of drugs and equipment
NEW YORK, March 27 (Reuters) – Doctors and nurses on the front lines of the U.S. coronavirus crisis pleaded on Friday for more protective gear and equipment to treat waves of patients expected to overwhelm hospitals as the sum of known U.S. infections climbed well past 100,000, with more than 1,600 dead. Physicians have called particular attention to a desperate need for additional ventilators, machines that help patients breathe and are widely needed for those suffering from COVID-19, the respiratory ailment caused by the highly contagious novel coronavirus. Hospitals in New York City, New Orleans, Detroit and other virus hot spots have also sounded the alarm about scarcities of drugs, medical supplies and trained staff while the number of confirmed U.S. cases rose by about 18,000 on Friday, the highest jump in a single day, to more than 103,000. That tally kept the United States as the world leader in the number of known infections, having surpassed China and Italy on Thursday.
“We are scared,” said Dr. Arabia Mollette of Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn. “We’re trying to fight for everyone else’s life, but we also fight for our lives as well, because we’re also at the highest risk of exposure.”
The United States ranked sixth in death toll among the hardest hit countries, with at least 1,632 lives lost as of Friday night, a record daily increase of 370 according to a Reuters tabulation of official data. Worldwide, confirmed cases rose above 593,000 with 27,198 deaths, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported.Even as hospital patient numbers steadily climbed, shortages of key medical supplies abounded. Continue reading “As U.S. virus cases exceed 100,000, doctors decry scarcity of drugs and equipment”
Trump signs $2.2T CARES Act into law
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed an unprecedented $2.2 trillion economic rescue package into law Friday, after swift and near-unanimous action by Congress this week to support businesses, rush resources to overburdened health care providers and help struggling families during the deepening coronavirus epidemic. Acting with unity and resolve unseen since the 9/11 attacks, Washington moved urgently to stem an economic free fall caused by widespread restrictions meant to slow the spread of the virus that have shuttered schools, closed businesses and brought American life in many places to a virtual standstill. “This will deliver urgently needed relief,” Trump said as he signed the bill in the Oval Office, flanked only by Republican lawmakers. He thanked members of both parties for putting Americans “first.” Earlier Friday, the House of Representatives gave near-unanimous approval by voice vote after an impassioned session conducted along the social distancing guidelines imposed by the crisis. Many lawmakers sped to Washington to participate — their numbers swollen after a maverick Republican signaled he’d try to force a roll call vote — though dozens of others remained safely in their home districts. The Senate passed the bill unanimously late Wednesday. “The American people deserve a government-wide, visionary, evidence-based response to address these threats to their lives and their livelihood and they need it now,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Continue reading “Trump signs $2.2T CARES Act into law”
Trump keeps touting an unproven coronavirus treatment. It’s now being tested on thousands in New York.
The push in the U.S. pandemic epicenter follows the president’s declaration that he ‘feels good’ about compounds with unproven efficacy, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine.
Coronavirus could kill 81,000 in U.S., subside in June -Washington University analysis
The coronavirus pandemic could kill more than 81,000 people in the United States in the next four months and may not subside until June, according to a data analysis done by the University of Washington School of Medicine. The number of hospitalized patients is expected to peak nationally by the second week of April, though the peak may come later in some states.
Some people could continue to die of the virus as late as July, although deaths should be below epidemic levels of 10 per day by June at the latest, according to the analysis. The analysis, using data from governments, hospitals and other sources, predicts that the number of US deaths could vary widely, ranging from as low as around 38,000 to as high as around 162,000. The variance is due in part to disparate rates of the spread of the virus in different regions, which experts are still struggling to explain, said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, who led the study. The duration of the virus means there may be a need for social distancing measures for longer than initially expected, although the country may eventually be able relax restrictions if it can more effectively test and quarantine the sick, Murray said. The analysis also highlights the strain that will be placed on hospitals. At the epidemic’s peak, sick patients could exceed the number of available hospital beds by 64,000 and could require the use of around 20,000 ventilators. Ventilators are already running short in hard-hit places like New York City. The virus is spreading more slowly in California, which could mean that peak cases there will come later in April and social distancing measures will need to be extended in the state for longer, Murray said. Louisiana and Georgia are predicted to see high rates of contagion and could see a particularly high burden on their local healthcare systems, he added. The analysis assumes close adherence to infection prevention measures imposed by federal, state and local governments. “The trajectory of the pandemic will change – and dramatically for the worse – if people ease up on social distancing or relax with other precautions,” Murray said in a statement. The analysis comes as the US becomes the country that has has the most coronavirus cases in the world.