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The coronavirus is also spreading unabated in the United States. The situation in the city and in the state of New York is particularly serious. According to Governor Andrew Cuomo, the death toll alone rose by 100 to 385 within 24 hours. This is a sharp increase. Accordingly, more than 37,000 infections have now been confirmed. The day before it was around 30,000.
As ARD correspondent Peter Mücke reported in Deutschlandfunk Nova, the situation is also coming to a head in the metropolis of New York. According to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, around 4,000 people are currently being treated for coronavirus infection in the city’s hospitals. Accordingly, the number of infected people doubles every three days. The emergency rooms are full. Hospitals put up tents so that the sick would not have to wait outside. Almost 200 people have already died in the city of the lung disease Covid-19.
New York Mayor de Blasio: “No place suffers more pain”
“New York is the US epicenter in this crisis,” tweeted de Blasio. “No place suffers more pain. No place needs urgent help.” The head of administration expects that more than half of the city’s 8.6 million inhabitants will be infected with the corona virus by May. “Most will have mild symptoms, but we will lose a lot of people.” April will be tough. May harder.
De Blasio got the townspeople in the mood for hard times: “The world we knew is lost. That is the ruthless truth. But I know that New Yorkers can cope with the truth.” Massive restrictions on public life apply in both the state and the city. All restaurants, clubs and bars are closed. People are called to remain in self-isolation and to only leave their homes to go to work, to go shopping, to visit the doctor or to take a short walk alone. In addition, de Blasio ordered all “non-vital facilities” to be closed.
Cuomo fears a massive overload of hospitals for the state in the coming days. He stressed that the state still had enough ventilators for patients – but many more machines would soon be needed. According to the Reuters news agency, New York has already reported an acute emergency. In the clinics, two patients are currently being ventilated with an oxygen cylinder. A hospital ship belonging to the US Marie is due to anchor in New York in early April. The city’s largest conference center is being converted into an emergency hospital.
Initial jobless claims skyrocket
The coronavirus crisis is also having an impact on the economy and the labor market in the USA: analysts are expecting a massive slump and a prolonged recession despite an economic stimulus package of two trillion US dollars launched by Congress.
According to information from the US Department of Labor, the number of initial jobless claims rose tenfold from 282,000 to around 3.3 million in the past seven days. That was the highest value since data collection began. The last time there was such a record was in 1982 with almost 700,000 initial applications.
More than 83,000 infections and more than 1,201 deaths had been reported in the United States as of Thursday night, according to Johns Hopkins University. The USA is now ahead of Italy and China in terms of corona infections and.
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