Skip to main content

U.S. braces for 'hardest' week as coronavirus deaths mount

(ITNTV) - The United States on Sunday entered one of the most critical weeks so far in the coronavirus crisis, with government officials warning that the death toll in places such as New York, Michigan and Louisiana was a sign of trouble to come in other states.
Still, governors of eight states resisted issuing stay-at-home orders aimed at slowing the spread of the respiratory disease, and some churches held large Palm Sunday services in defiance of such orders in their states.
New York, the hardest-hit state, reported on Sunday that for the first time in a week, deaths had fallen slightly from the day before, but there were still nearly 600 new fatalities and more than 7,300 new cases. Places such as Pennsylvania, Colorado and Washington, D.C., are starting to see rising deaths.

RELATED COVERAGE

“This is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans’ lives, quite frankly. This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localized,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams warned on Fox News on Sunday. “It’s going to be happening all over the country. And I want America to understand that.”
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday that new hospitalizations had fallen by 50% over the previous 24 hours. He cautioned that it was not yet clear whether the crisis was reaching a plateau in the state, which has a total of 4,159 deaths and more than 122,000 cases.
Click here for a graphic on U.S. coronavirus cases
ADVERTISEMENT
Once the peak of the epidemic passes, Cuomo said a mass rollout of rapid testing would be critical to help the nation “return to normalcy.”
Most states have ordered residents to stay home except for essential trips to slow the spread of the virus in the United States, where more than 335,000 people have tested positive and over 9,500 have died, according to a Reuters tally.
But eight states, all of them with Republican governors, have yet to order residents to stay home: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. Georgia, which has recorded 6,600 cases and more than 200 deaths, ordered residents to stay home but then allowed some beaches to reopen.
Republican Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson defended his refusal to order statewide restrictions, saying the situation was being watched closely and that his more “targeted approach” was still slowing the spread of the virus.
A healthcare worker takes a break outside Wyckoff Heights Medical Center during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York City, U.S., 
Adams, the surgeon general, said governors who had not issued month-long stay-at-home orders should at least consider one for the upcoming week.
President Donald Trump expressed hope on Sunday the United States was seeing a “leveling-off” of the coronavirus crisis in some hot spots, citing the drop in deaths from Saturday in New York.
“We see light at the end of the tunnel. Things are happening,” Trump told reporters.
ADVERTISEMENT

CHURCH BUSES IN PARISHIONERS

A few churches were holding large gatherings on Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week in Christian churches.
Pastor Tony Spell, who was arrested last week for holding services, summoned his faithful again, three weeks after Louisiana banned gatherings of 10 people or more.
Louisiana has become a hot spot for the virus, reporting a jump in deaths to nearly 500 and more than 13,000 cases. The governor predicted the state would run out of ventilators by Thursday.
New York Mayor Bill De Blasio said the city had enough ventilators to get through Tuesday or Wednesday, and he was seeking between 1,000 and 1,500 more from federal and state stockpiles, which he estimated had 10,000 and 2,800, respectively.
Slideshow (15 Images)
Oregon, which has reported around 1,000 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, said it was sending New York 140 ventilators, machines that help people breathe after the virus attacks their lungs. Washington is returning over 400 of the machines to the Strategic National Stockpile for hard-hit states like New York.
White House medical experts have forecast that between 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could be killed in the pandemic, even if sweeping orders to stay home are followed.
Still, members of Trump’s coronavirus task force saw signs of progress in their fight against the virus.
“We’re very hopeful that over the next week, although we’ll see rising number of cases and people who lose their lives to this illness, we’re also hopeful to see a stabilization of cases across these large metro areas where the outbreak began several weeks ago,” task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx told reporters.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

European Union will close its borders to all non-essential travel to fight coronavirus

Madrid (ITNTV) The European Union will close its borders to all non-essential travel as it attempts to contain the  ongoing spread of the coronavirus  on the continent. "The less travel, the more we can contain the virus," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday following a video conference between G7 leaders. She appeared confident that the European Council would sign off on the restriction in a Tuesday vote. The bloc's member states imposed aggressive measures on Monday,  days after the  World Health Organization (WHO) said Europe was at the epicenter of the pandemic. French President Emmanuel Macron declared "war" on the virus during a national address on Monday, banning all social events across the country -- including family gatherings. Macron said those who have gathered in public places in recent days have not been respecting previous measures to limit the outbreak's spread in France, which as of Monday had 5,380 con...
Post a Comment
Read more

US uses encrypted app to connect with Iranians as coronavirus sweeps their country

Washington (ITNTV) The State Department is using social media to encourage Iranians to share information with the Trump administration -- both on an encrypted tip line and through an online survey -- about the  coronavirus pandemic  that is devastating the country. "This is Iran's Chernobyl," said one administration official of the outbreak, who described social media portals as a tool to bypass the Iranian regime and connect to the country's people. The US began encouraging Iranians to use the encrypted messaging app last year, when Iranian demonstrators took to the streets and US officials wanted to learn more about the regime's bloody crackdown. Now, with Covid-19 devastating Iran, the tip line has been reinvigorated, administration officials told CNN. This time, the goal is to collect information from Iranians, find ways to share that information when it is determined to be accurate and leverage the coronavirus in an effort to fortify a relationship ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Virus creates world's longest passenger flight

(ITNTV) —  The aviation industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with travelers across the world dealing with canceled flights and travel bans as they scramble to get home. But one unlikely aviation side effect is the creation of a new world aviation record. On March 14, French airline Air Tahiti Nui flew the longest ever scheduled passenger flight by distance -- transiting 9,765 miles across the world from Papeete, in Tahiti, French Polynesia, to Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport. This one off milestone was a direct consequence of the coronavirus-induced US travel restrictions. This route usually involves a scheduled stopover at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). But when an airplane stops over in the US, all passengers must alight the aircraft and proceed through US Customs and Border Protection before they're allowed to advance on with the next leg of their journey. Current restrictions rendered this part of the journey untenable, so instead, f...
Post a Comment
Read more