Breaking

Coronavirus Live Updates: Pelosi Accuses Trump of ‘Deadly’ Denial; New York Mayor Says Medical Supplies Will Run Out in a Week
Mar 29, 2020 18 mins, 48 secs
新冠病毒疫情最新消息 Here’s what you need to know:Pelosi says Trump’s ‘denial at the beginning was deadly.’N.Y.C. Mayor Bill de Blasio: City has one week’s worth of medical suppliesC.D.C. issues a travel advisory for the New York region, after Trump backs off his quarantine threat.As the global tally crosses 670,000, India struggles through the world’s biggest lockdown.Illinois reports first known U.S. coronavirus infant death; Louisiana inmate dies.U.S. civil rights office moves to prevent discrimination over who gets lifesaving care.Citing virus fears, a judge orders U.S. officials to make efforts to release detained migrant children.VideoGov. Andrew Cuomo of New York will give updates on the state’s coronavirus outbreak.CreditCredit...Peter Foley/EPA, via ShutterstockPelosi says Trump’s ‘denial at the beginning was deadly.’In a broadside against President Trump’s approach to the coronavirus outbreak, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday that his delay in responding to the pandemic would ultimately cost American lives. “His denial at the beginning was deadly,” Ms. Pelosi, a California Democrat, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Now I think the best thing would be to do is to prevent more loss of life.” “We really want to work in a unified way to get the job done here, “ she added, “but we cannot continue to allow him to continue to make these underestimates of what is actually happening here.” “Don’t fiddle while people die, Mr. President,” Ms. Pelosi said. The White House had no immediate comment. The number of confirmed U.S. coronavirus cases has continued to rise, with more than 123,000 cases and over 2,100 deaths as of Sunday. Nineteen states have at least 1,000 cases each. Ms. Pelosi has primarily worked with Steven T. Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, as Congress and the White House raced to pass three huge legislative packages to tackle the fallout from the pandemic and support elements of the economy that have been shut down to contain its spread. She has not spoken with Mr. Trump for the past month — and she was not invited to attend the signing ceremony at the White House, as is tradition. “Legislation is my responsibility,” she said on Sunday. “Policy and passing it at all has not required any conversations with the president on the nature of the policies or the passage of this legislation.” N.Y.C. Mayor Bill de Blasio: City has one week’s worth of medical suppliesImageMayor Bill de Blasio in a warehouse with ventilators.Credit...Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesNew York City has a one-week supply of medical supplies to care for any New Yorker who is sick, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday. “We have enough supplies to get to a week from today, with the exception of ventilators, we’re going to need at least several hundred more ventilators very quickly,” Mr. de Blasio said in an appearance Sunday morning on CNN. “We are going to need a reinforcement.’’ Mr. de Blasio’s comments come as New York City’s 911 system is overwhelmed, hospitals in the New York area are deluged with new coronavirus cases and medical staff warn of shortages of personal protective equipment. The mayor was also concerned about a shortage of medical personnel and said he had made a direct request to Mr. Trump to send more military and civilian doctors and nurses from around the country. “Our front-line health care workers,” Mr. de Blasio said, “are giving their all, they’re in harm’s way. And, you know, we need to get them relief. We need to get them support and protection, but also relief. They can’t keep up at this pace.” C.D.C. issues a travel advisory for the New York region, after Trump backs off his quarantine threat.The C.D.C. issued a formal advisory late Saturday night urging the residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to “refrain from nonessential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately.” The advisory does not apply to “employees of critical infrastructure industries,” the agency said. That includes trucking, public health professionals, financial services and food supply workers. Earlier on Saturday, Mr. Trump had suggested the states might be quarantined — a more severe restriction — but offered no details about how his administration would enforce it. Hours later, Mr. Trump said on Twitter that he had spoken to the governors of the three states and that the quarantine “will not be necessary.” He said that he had asked the C.D.C. to issue the “strong” travel advisory to be implemented by the governors. Speaking to CNN, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York had criticized the idea of the quarantine, calling it “a declaration of war on states.” He also questioned the logistical challenges, as well as the message, that such an order would present. “If you start walling off areas all across the country, it would just be totally bizarre, counterproductive, anti-American, antisocial,” he said. The specter of a federal quarantine followed a wave of governors who, fearful about the virus spreading further through their states, ordered people who had traveled from New York to isolate themselves for two weeks after their arrivals. Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island said Friday that state troopers would begin stopping drivers with New York license plates so that National Guard officials could collect contact information and inform people coming from the state that they were subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine. Texas, Florida, Maryland and South Carolina are among the other states that have ordered people arriving from New York to self-quarantine. In Texas, the authorities said on Friday that Department of Public Safety agents would make surprise visits to see whether travelers were adhering to the state’s mandate, and they warned that violators could be fined $1,000 and jailed for 180 days. Mr. Lamont, the Connecticut governor, last week urged all travelers from New York City to self-quarantine for two weeks upon entering the state, but he stopped short of issuing an order requiring it. As the global tally crosses 670,000, India struggles through the world’s biggest lockdown.As the coronavirus has sickened more than 672,000 worldwide, hundreds of thousands of migrant laborers in India have begun long journeys on foot to get home, having been rendered homeless and jobless by the world’s biggest lockdown. In the capital, Delhi, thousands of migrants, including whole families, packed their pots, pans and blankets into rucksacks, some balancing small children on their shoulders as they walked along interstate highways, in one of the biggest migrations in the country’s recent history. Some planned to walk hundreds of miles. But as they reached the Delhi border, many were beaten back by the police. “You fear the disease, living on the streets. But I fear hunger more, not corona,” said Papu, 32, who came to Delhi three weeks ago for work and was trying to get to his home in Saharanpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh, 125 miles away. On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi apologized to the country for imposing the nationwide lockdown, which was announced with just four hours’ notice on Tuesday. “I would firstly like to seek forgiveness from all my countrymen,” he said in a radio address. “Possibly many would be angry at me for being locked in their homes,” he added, saying that there was no other way “to wage a war against corona.” So far, 980 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in India, with 24 dead, according to officials. More than 31,500 have died worldwide. India already had one of the world’s largest homeless populations, and the lockdown may have tripled it overnight, workers for nongovernmental organizations say. A 2011 government census put the number of homeless at 1.7 million, almost certainly a vast underestimate in the country of 1.3 billion. The lockdown, which includes a ban on interstate travel, left India’s enormous migrant population stranded in big cities, where jobs have lured them in vast numbers from the countryside. Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global OutbreakThe virus has infected more than 678,900 people in at least 171 countries. Illinois reports first known U.S. coronavirus infant death; Louisiana inmate dies.An infant who tested positive for the coronavirus has died in Chicago, the authorities said on Saturday. It was the first known death of a child younger than a year old with the virus in the United States, although the authorities in some states do not release details about people who die. In Louisiana, an inmate at a federal prison also died from the coronavirus, according to an employee at the facility. The death is the first involving an inmate in the Federal Bureau of Prisons system. Newborns and babies have seemed to be largely unaffected by the coronavirus, but three new studies suggest that the virus may reach the fetus in utero. “There has never before been a death associated with Covid-19 in an infant,” said Dr. Ngozi Ezike, the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health. “A full investigation is underway to determine the cause of death.” Older adults, especially those in their 80s and 90s, have been viewed as the most vulnerable in the outbreak, but younger people have also died. Corey Trammel, a president of the local prison union at the Federal Correctional Complex in Oakdale, La., said that more than 10 inmates from the prison had been hospitalized and more than 60 were in isolation with symptoms or were in quarantine. He said at least six staff members at the prison were thought to have the virus. “We need to do something to get ahead of this,” he said. “And the community is being left in the dark.” The Bureau of Prisons website currently lists five inmates and no staff members at the Oakdale prison as having tested positive for the virus. The bureau did not respond to an email about the death. In the federal system, at least 27 inmates and prison workers across the country have tested positive for the virus, according to the bureau’s website. As of Sunday morning, deaths in the United States had surpassed 2,100, including at least 50 in Illinois. More than 3,500 cases of the virus have been identified in Illinois. U.S. civil rights office moves to prevent discrimination over who gets lifesaving care.The director of the U.S. health department’s civil rights office has said his office is opening a series of investigations to ensure that states do not allow medical providers to discriminate on the basis of disabilities, race, age or certain other factors when deciding who receives lifesaving medical care during the coronavirus emergency. The civil rights office released a new bulletin days after disability rights advocates filed complaints arguing that protocols to ration lifesaving medical care adopted by Alabama and Washington State were discriminatory. Many states and hospitals are developing plans for how to ration care if the number of critically ill coronavirus patients exceeds capacity. Patients who develop severe respiratory distress from coronavirus infection often require support from mechanical ventilators for days to weeks, and the machines are expected to be in short supply in the United States. Many plans would prioritize patients who were most likely to survive their immediate illness, and who also had a better chance of long-term survival. Some assign patients a score based on calculations of their level of illness, with decisions between patients who have the same score made by random selection. Some plans instruct hospitals not to offer mechanical ventilators to people above a certain age or with particular health conditions. “Our civil rights laws protect the equal dignity of every human life from ruthless utilitarianism,” Roger Severino, the office’s director, said in a statement this weekend. People with disabilities, those with limited English skills and older people “should not be put at the end of the line for health care during emergencies,” he said. He said his office had heard from “a broad spectrum of civil rights groups, pro-life groups, disability rights groups, from prominent members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, from ordinary people who are concerned about their civil rights in this time of crisis.” Citing virus fears, a judge orders U.S. officials to make efforts to release detained migrant children.Concerned that thousands of migrant children in federal detention facilities could be in danger of contracting the coronavirus, a federal judge in Los Angeles late on Saturday ordered the government to “make continuous efforts” to release them from custody. The order, from Judge Dolly M. Gee of the United States District Court, came after plaintiffs in a long-running case over the detention of migrant children cited reports that four children being held at a federally licensed shelter in New York had tested positive for the virus. “The threat of irreparable injury to their health and safety is palpable,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in their petition, which called for migrant children across the country to be released to outside sponsors within seven days unless they represent a flight risk. Around the United States, about 3,600 children are in shelters operated under license by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, and about 3,300 more at three detention facilities for migrant children held in custody with their parents, operated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. America’s lost month: How the U.S. fell behind on coronavirus testing.As the coronavirus spread across the United States between late January and early March, large-scale testing of people who might have been infected did not happen because of technical flaws, regulatory hurdles, business-as-usual bureaucracies and lack of leadership at multiple levels. The three federal health ag​​​encies responsible for detecting and combating ​pandemic threats failed to prepare quickly enough, a Times investigation found. Even as scientists looked at China and sounded alarms, none of the agencies’ directors conveyed the urgency required to spur a no-holds-barred defense, according to interviews with more than 50 current and former public health officials, administration officials, senior scientists and company executives. Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, trusted the agency’s veteran scientists to develop a test for the coronavirus. But when the test turned out to have a flaw, it took the C.D.C. much of February to settle on a solution. In the meantime, the virus was spreading undetected. Dr. Stephen Hahn​, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, was supposed to help build national testing capacity by approving diagnostic tests developed by the private sector. Yet he enforced regulations that paradoxically made it tougher for hospitals and laboratories to deploy ​such tests in an emergency. Alex ​M. ​Azar​ II​, ​the health and human services secretary, oversaw the ​two other agencies and coordinated the government’s public health response to the pandemic. ​Yet he ​did not manage to push the C​.​D​.​C​.​ or F​.​D​.​A​.​ to speed up or change course. Together, the challenges resulted in a lost month, when the United States squandered its best chance of containing the coronavirus’s spread. Instead, Americans were left largely blind to the scale of a looming public health catastrophe. A surgeon on the front lines dies as Britain is warned of a ‘significant’ lockdown.Britain should be prepared for a significant period in lockdown as the government tries to tackle the coronavirus outbreak, a senior cabinet minister said on Sunday. “Everyone, I think, does have to prepare for a significant period when these measures are still in place,” the minister, Michael Gove, told the BBC. His remarks came as the country’s National Health Service mourned the loss of a surgeon who died after contracting the coronavirus. The surgeon, Adil El Tayar, 63, a native of Sudan, was an organ transplant specialist who had been serving as a volunteer in a British hospital to help fight the pandemic. Britain’s ambassador to Sudan, Irfan Siddiq, paid tribute to the surgeon on Twitter, adding: “Health workers around the world have shown extraordinary courage. We cannot thank them enough.” Thousands of retired doctors and nurses in Britain have agreed to go back to work to reinforce the ranks of the health service as the country struggles with a growing outbreak. The more than 400,000 people who have stepped forward also include volunteers who are helping older people quarantined in their homes. Britain had over 17,000 confirmed coronavirus cases as of Sunday — including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was initially reluctant to introduce social distancing measures in the country; Matt Hancock, the health secretary; and Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne. Wealthier Europeans escape to second homes, stoking fear and anger in smaller communities.Across Europe, affluent city dwellers have been leaving hard-hit cities for their second homes, where proximity to the sea or the mountains lessens the discomfort of confinement. But they also bring fears that they will spread the coronavirus to regions with few hospitals, putting at greater risk local residents who tend to be older and have limited incomes. The situation has ignited anger over what the pandemic is laying bare every day: the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor. In Italy, currently the European nation with the most infections and deaths, many people fled south from the hard-hit north, the region first put in lockdown. Though hard figures are unavailable, some officials in the south have attributed new infections to the influx. In Spain, José María Aznar, the former prime minister, packed his bags for his holiday villa in Marbella, a celebrity resort on the Mediterranean, leaving Madrid on the very day that the capital shut all schools and universities. The move prompted anger and calls to monitor Mr. Aznar and lock him inside his villa. ‘We Take the Dead From Morning Till Night’No country has been hit harder by the coronavirus than Italy, and no province has suffered as many losses as Bergamo. Photos and voices from there evoke a portrait of despair. Spain on Sunday reported a overnight record rise in the number of fatalities — 838 dead — bringing the total to about 6,500 deaths and almost 79,000 registered coronavirus cases, the fourth highest in the world. And in France — which has 3.4 million second homes, far more than any of its neighbors — some urbanites arrived on the island of Noirmoutier and headed straight to the beach. They were seen picnicking, kite surfing, jogging and biking. In retribution, tires of about half a dozen cars with Paris plates were slashed. “Their behavior was unacceptable,’’ said Frédéric Boucard, 47, an oyster farmer. “It’s as if they were on vacation.” Another local, Claude Gouraud, 55, said, “We should have blocked the bridge weeks ago.” Ambulances in New York haven’t been this busy since 9/11.Even as hospitals across New York become inundated with coronavirus cases, some patients are being left behind in their homes because the health care system cannot handle them all, according to dozens of interviews with paramedics, New York Fire Department officials and union representatives, as well as city data. In a matter of days, the city’s 911 system has been overwhelmed by calls for medical distress apparently related to the virus. Typically, the system sees about 4,000 Emergency Medical Services calls a day. On Thursday, dispatchers took more than 7,000 calls — a volume not seen since the Sept. 11 attacks. The record for amount of calls in a day was broken three times in the last week. Because of the volume, emergency medical workers are making life-or-death decisions about who is sick enough to take to crowded emergency rooms and who appears well enough to leave behind. They are assessing on scene which patients should receive time-consuming measures like CPR and intubation, and which patients are too far gone to save. And they are often doing it, they say, without appropriate equipment to protect themselves from infection. The paramedics described grim scenes as New York City has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, with more than 29,000 cases as of Saturday, and 517 deaths. Answers to your questions about staying fit.Stuck at home? You don’t need access to a gym to stay active. You can (and should) go outside for a walk or run (or do push-ups and squats). Interview with a W.H.O. official revives criticism over China’s influence.A World Health Organization official ducked questions about Taiwan’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, reviving criticism that China exercises undue influence over what should be an apolitical body concerned with global health. China considers self-governed Taiwan to be part of its territory, and has sought to limit its international recognition and participation in multinational bodies like the W.H.O. In its coronavirus situation reports, the W.H.O. has listed Taiwan as part of China and referred to it as “Taipei,” its capital city, and later “Taipei and environs.” In an interview broadcast Saturday by RTHK, the Hong Kong public broadcaster, the journalist Yvonne Tong asked Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser at the W.H.O., whether Taiwan should be reconsidered for membership in the organization. At first, Dr. Aylward, who led a W.H.O team to China in February, said he had not heard the question over the video call. But when pushed again, he asked that Ms. Tong move on to a new question. When she tried again, the video was disconnected. RTHK then called back and asked about Taiwan’s performance in containing the virus. “We’ve already talked about China, and you know, when you look across all the different areas of China, they’ve actually all done quite a good job,” Dr. Aylward responded. Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s foreign minister, criticized Dr. Aylward’s comments. “Wow, can’t even utter ‘Taiwan’ in the W.H.O.?” Mr. Wu wrote on Twitter. “You should set politics aside in dealing with a pandemic.” Taiwan has been widely credited for containing the spread of the coronavirus within its borders, despite its proximity to mainland China and the large number of people who regularly travel across the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan has recorded 283 confirmed coronavirus cases and just two deaths. Taiwan last week accused the W.H.O. of not passing along a warning it sent in December, which cautioned governments about the outbreak in Wuhan, the city in China where the coronavirus emerged last year. Reporting and research were contributed by Neil MacFarquhar, Alan Blinder, Michael D. Shear, Jesse McKinley, Abby Goodnough, Sheila Kaplan, Sheri Fink, Katie Thomas, Noah Weiland, Ali Watkins, Maria Abi-Habib, Austin Ramzy, Tess Felder, Yonette Joseph, Raphael Minder and Iliana Magra.

RECENT NEWS

SUBSCRIBE

Get monthly updates and free resources.

CONNECT WITH US

© Copyright 2024 365NEWSX - All RIGHTS RESERVED