The governor of New York announced Thursday the extension until May 15 of the containment measures in this state at the epicenter of the American epidemic, despite a daily death toll at the lowest for 10 days.
• Read also: All the developments of the pandemic
“We must continue what we are doing,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said during his daily press briefing. “I would like to see the infection rate drop even further. The containment policy will remain in effect until May 15, ”he added.
He also said that this state of nearly 20 million inhabitants had recorded 606 deaths from the pandemic in the past 24 hours, the lowest daily toll recorded since April 6. The day before, the state had deplored 752 dead.
New York State is by far the most affected by the epidemic in the United States, with more than 210,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and more than 11,500 deaths already officially recorded.
For several days, signs of a stabilization of the epidemic have been increasing, with a slowdown in hospitalizations, a decrease in people requiring intensive care. To the point that the governor, who called for thousands of ventilators at the end of March to cope with the influx of patients in hospitals, is now sending them to other states.
On Thursday, he said he was going to ship 100 to the neighboring state of New Jersey, in addition to 100 already planned for the state of Michigan and 50 for Maryland.
While President Donald Trump is due to announce “directives” on Thursday to “reopen” the US economy, Mr. Cuomo continues to warn against deconfinement that would revive the epidemic.
On Wednesday, he had already announced a decree that will require, from Friday evening, New Yorkers to wear a mask in all public places where the regulatory distance of two meters can not be respected, starting with public transport or supermarkets.
He also called again for help the federal state to set up a massive population test system, crucial according to experts to ensure a resumption of economic activity that does not revive the disease.
Mr. Cuomo is working with the governors of five other states (New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island) to try to define together the conditions of this recovery.
He has explained in recent days that they have been thinking together to see which companies and organizations with the least risky activities in terms of the spread of the virus, which could be the first to be allowed to restart.
UK also extends confinement
The British government extended the containment introduced on March 23 to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 14,000 people in the United Kingdom, by at least three weeks on Thursday, but remains miserly on details of its exit strategy.
Despite pressure from the opposition and the dramatic economic situation, the management team, deprived of its recovering leader Boris Johnson, sticks to its message: the system must be kept in place until the peak of the pandemic has occurred. passed, before moving on to its relaxation, as it is emerging in the rest of Europe.
“The government has decided that the current measures must remain in place at least for the next three weeks,” Foreign Minister Dominic Raab, who is replacing Boris Johnson, told a press conference.
Mr Raab stressed the importance of not risking a second peak that would overwhelm the public health service, the NHS, and wipe out the benefit of the sacrifices so far made.
“The light at the end of the tunnel”
“The message” is that “the light is at the end of the tunnel and that we are making progress,” he said. But he warned that it would be “irresponsible” to pronounce on a timetable for the release of containment, simply raising the possibility of a “relaxation” of the device in some areas and a “strengthening” in others.
According to the daily The Guardian, decisions on post-confinement are delayed by the absence of Boris Johnson, suffering from Covid-19, resting after a week of hospitalization.
The United Kingdom is one of the countries in Europe most affected by Covid-19. The death toll is on the rise again with 861 additional fatal cases recorded Thursday in hospitals, bringing the total death toll to 13,729. There are also those in retirement homes, which are not included in the figures communicated daily and which portend a much higher number of deaths.
The milestone of 100,000 recorded cases of contamination was crossed Thursday, out of nearly 418,000 tests performed. Criticized for the weakness of screening, the government has promised to reach 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month, but we remain very far from this goal.
Caregivers pay a heavy price. Among those killed by the coronavirus are 27 public health service workers, according to Health Minister Matt Hancock: one of those most tragic cases is that of a 28-year-old pregnant nurse. Her baby, however, survived.
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