Washington (AP) – US President Donald Trump is apparently considering a far-reaching lockdown of New York and other states severely affected by the Corona crisis.
“Some people would like to see New York quarantined because it is a hotspot,” Trump said in the White House garden. When giving a speech in Norfolk, Virginia, he promised to make a decision “fairly soon”. Travel restrictions are also being considered for New York’s neighboring states New Jersey and Connecticut, Trump said. Trade and the movement of goods should not be affected.
According to the state governor, such travel restrictions would cause chaos for people. Such a measure will result in economic dislocation, said Andrew Cuomo the TV broadcaster CNN. The stock exchanges would “sink like a stone” and the economy would not be able to recover for months or years. In addition, it was not clear to him how Trump wanted to legally implement such far-reaching travel restrictions, said Cuomo. “I think it’s illegal.”
The US east coast state of New York with the metropolis of the same name has developed into the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the USA. The number of detected infections rose to more than 62,000 in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut combined – that’s more than half of all cases in the United States. However, significantly more tests were carried out in New York in particular than in other parts of the country. According to the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, more than 1900 people have died in the USA so far. According to Governor Andrew Cuomo, more than 700 of them came from New York State.
Trump said many New Yorkers are currently traveling to Florida. “We don’t want that,” he said. Regarding possible restrictions on freedom of movement, Trump said, “I would rather not do it, but maybe we need it.” In the event that such measures had to be taken, they would apply for a short time. Trump spoke of a period of two weeks.
New York Governor Cuomo reacted cautiously to Trump’s statements. “I haven’t talked to him about any quarantine,” Cuomo said at his daily press conference. “I don’t even know what that means.” He also does not know how such a regulation should be legally enforced.
Trump had downplayed the scope of the virus until a month ago. He is accused of having reacted too hesitantly to the crisis and that the pandemic caught the country cold as a result. According to Johns Hopkins University, the number of demonstrably infected people on Saturday was more than 116,500, more than 1900 people died. Experts expect the situation in the US to worsen before any calm can be expected. New York Governor Cuomo expects the peak of the wave of infections for his state in two to three weeks.
In mid-March, Trump imposed an entry ban on travelers from Europe in order to slow the spread of the virus. He had not excluded the possibility of travel restrictions within the country in the case of developing hotspots. So far, however, the government has refrained from taking measures of this kind.
Trump passed the hospital ship “Comfort” in Norfolk, which is supposed to relieve New York hospitals and arrive there on Monday. “You have the unwavering support of the entire nation, the entire government and the entire American people,” Trump said before the ship’s departure in a speech addressed to the New Yorkers. The ship with its 1000 beds should send a “message of hope and solidarity,” said Trump. Turning to the virus, he lamented that countries around the world were “under attack by this terrible, invisible enemy”.
In New York, local authorities had repeatedly warned that the capacities of the hospitals there were not even remotely prepared for the contagion of large parts of the population. The government expects the state to need 30,000 ventilators. At the moment there are only about 11,000, according to Friday. According to local media, the clinics could selectively reach their capacity limits for the first time in the coming days.
With a population of over eight million, New York City is the largest US city and one of the world’s cultural and economic centers. Restaurants, bars, schools, museums, and Broadway shows are closed. All citizens are called upon to stay at home, “non-vital” institutions and companies are closed. More than 30 million people live in the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
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