{"id":3570,"date":"2020-03-27T10:47:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T10:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maadhouze.com\/?p=3570"},"modified":"2020-03-27T10:47:11","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T10:47:11","slug":"us-tops-world-virus-cases-overtaking-china-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=3570","title":{"rendered":"US Tops World In Virus Cases, Overtaking China And Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"
Medical staff push a patient on a gurney to a waiting medical helicopter at the Emile Muller hospital in Mulhouse, eastern France, to be evacuated on another hospital on March 17, 2020, amid the outbreak of the new Coronavirus, COVID-19. SEBASTIEN BOZON \/ AFP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The United States on Thursday took the grim title of the country with the most coronavirus infections and reported a record surge in unemployment as world leaders vowed $5 trillion to stave off global economic collapse.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

More than 500,000 people around the world have now contracted the new coronavirus, overwhelming healthcare systems even in wealthy nations and triggering an avalanche of government-ordered lockdowns that have disrupted life for billions.<\/p>\n

In the United States, more than 83,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19, edging out Italy, which has reported the most deaths, and China, where the virus was first detected in December in the metropolis of Wuhan.<\/p>\n

The US has recorded 1,178 deaths, while the global death toll stood at 23,293.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are waging war on this virus using every financial, scientific, medical, pharmaceutical and military resource, to halt its spread and protect our citizens,\u201d US President Donald Trump said.<\/p>\n

With about 40 percent of Americans under lockdown orders, Trump urged citizens to do their part by practicing social distancing: \u201cStay home. Just relax, stay home.\u201d<\/p>\n

With fears mounting of a global recession if not depression, leaders from the Group of 20 major economies\u00a0held crisis talks by video link Thursday, pledging a \u201cunited front\u201d to fight the outbreak \u2014 along with an enormous financial injection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe virus respects no borders,\u201d the leaders said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are injecting over $5 trillion into the global economy, as part of targeted fiscal policy, economic measures, and guarantee schemes to counteract the social, economic and financial impacts of the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also pledged \u201crobust\u201d support for developing nations, where coronavirus could next take hold after ravaging China and then Europe.<\/p>\n

But the unity pledged by the G20 has been in short supply, with China and the United States trading barbs over their handling of the coronavirus crisis.<\/p>\n

And Italy as well as Spain, which has the second-highest death toll, objected to a draft economic plan by the European Union which they saw as too weak.<\/p>\n

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte wants a \u201cstrong and sufficient\u201d financial response that deploys \u201cinnovative financial instruments truly adapted to a war,\u201d his office said.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Record one-day toll in France \u2013
\nAlarmed by the rapid spread of the sickness in Italy, France has taken aggressive action to stem the virus and went under lockdown on March 17.<\/p>\n

But the 365 deaths reported Thursday was its highest in a one-day period and, alarmingly, included a 16-year-old girl \u2014 a rare case of a young person succumbing to a virus that has devastated the elderly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very difficult to estimate when the peak will come,\u201d French health official Jerome Salomon said. \u201cPeople who are ill now were infected before the confinement began.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow there is less contact, people are going out less and get infected less. So we hope there will be fewer people getting sick next week and fewer people going to hospital,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

With hospitals under severe strain, medical workers in Italy and Spain are making painstaking choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019ve got five patients and only one bed, I have to choose who gets it,\u201d Sara Chinchilla, a pediatrician at a hospital near Madrid, told AFP.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are dying who could be saved but there\u2019s no space in intensive care.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Britain, the National Health Service said London\u2019s hospitals are facing a \u201ccontinuous tsunami\u201d of seriously ill COVID-19 patients, despite a lockdown imposed this week.<\/p>\n

And in New York, the virus hotbed in the United States, authorities hope to stem \u00a0infections as the city struggles to more than double the number of available hospital beds.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost any scenario that is realistic will overwhelm the capacity of the current healthcare system,\u201d Governor Andrew Cuomo warned.<\/p>\n

First responders in New York were receiving more than 6,000 calls to the 911 emergency line a day, many from people seeking virus testing.<\/p>\n

It is \u201cbreaking records. We didn\u2019t have this many calls on 9\/11,\u201d said Anthony Almojeria, a leader in the emergency medical services union, referring to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Economic devastation \u2013
\nThe pandemic has already, and rapidly, been catastrophic to the global economy.<\/p>\n

In the United States, the world\u2019s largest economy, the Labor Department reported that 3.3 million people applied for unemployment benefits last week \u2014 by far the highest number ever recorded.<\/p>\n

Job losses have swept across sectors from food services to retail to transportation, as nearly half of the country has closed to \u201cnon-essential\u201d businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is staggering. We are only seeing the initial numbers; they will get worse, unfortunately,\u201d New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters, estimating that half a million people in the city would lose work.<\/p>\n

But Wall Street soared for a third straight day, recouping more of this month\u2019s hefty losses, on expectations for the largest stimulus in US history.<\/p>\n

The Senate early Thursday unanimously passed a $2 trillion package that will provide cash payouts averaging $3,400 for a family of four.<\/p>\n

Speaker Nancy Pelosi voiced confidence that the\u00a0House of Representatives would follow suit on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Glimmer of hope \u2013
\nThe global lockdown \u2014 which also hemmed in India\u2019s huge population this week \u2014 tightened further on Thursday as Russia announced it was grounding all international flights, while Moscow\u2019s mayor ordered the closure of cafes, shops and parks.<\/p>\n

Tokyo\u2019s millions of citizens have been told to stay home, too, just days after the city was forced to postpone the 2020 Olympic Games for a year.<\/p>\n

China said it was barring entry to most foreigners, fearing that imported cases were undermining its success in bringing domestic transmissions way down.<\/p>\n

And South Africa came under a nationwide military-patrolled lockdown as its cases climbed to more than 900 \u2014 about a third of Africa\u2019s 3,200 cases.<\/p>\n

The impact of the virus has stretched well beyond frontline health workers, with billions trapped in their homes and facing what experts say could be lasting psychological harm.<\/p>\n

But offering a glimmer of hope, both Italy and Spain have seen lower daily rates of new infections this week.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organization called Italy\u2019s numbers \u201cencouraging signs,\u201d but warned it was \u201cstill too early to say whether the pandemic is peaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

A study from Britain\u2019s Imperial College provided a grim prediction, saying 1.8 million people could die worldwide this year even with swift action to halt the virus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medical staff push a patient on a gurney to a waiting medical helicopter at the Emile Muller hospital in Mulhouse, eastern France, to be evacuated on another hospital on March 17, 2020, amid the outbreak of the new Coronavirus, COVID-19. SEBASTIEN BOZON \/ AFP   The United States on Thursday took the grim title of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1784,2397,2394,633,1916,482],"class_list":["post-3570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-convid-19","tag-coronavirus","tag-donald-trump","tag-italy","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3570"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3572,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3570\/revisions\/3572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}