• Covid-19. Last minute on the coronavirus

The United States has faced another fateful day to overcome the 200,000 infections by choroanvirus and touch the 5,000 deaths, with New York still as the epicenter but with outbreaks throughout the country. Total infections reached 215,000 - almost double that of the second most positive country, Italy - after adding nearly 26,000 in the last 24 hours; while the deceased are now 4,757 .

A situation that has led several governors to order their citizens to stay at home, while other states advocate a rapid decrease in stocks of emergency medical supplies , according to The New York Times .

With 84,000 of the 215,000 confirmed cases, New York is once again the epicenter of Covid-19 in the United States and its governor, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, has assured that they do not expect to reach the peak of the curve until the end of April, although he warned that the number of deceased will remain high until August.

"In this war we have to make plans for the next battle. We have been behind from the first day; this virus has taken the lead from the first day. So you don't win a war . The next battle is the peak, the next battle is at the top of the mountain, because where you see a curve I see a mountain, "he said. The governor warned that in New York some 16,000 people will die from the virus.

Although the outbreak of coronavirus in New York and its metropolitan area (which includes New Jersey and Connecticut) is the most worrying, in the last few hours other outbreaks are emerging in Michigan, California or New Orleans (Louisiana), which faces its greatest challenge since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. With 6,424 confirmed cases, 1,498 hospitalized, and 273 dead, Louisiana faces a hospital collapse and a lack of respirators .

This is one of the main problems facing the Donald Trump Administration in its fight against the pandemic. According to The New York Times , the problem is that the federal government has almost emptied its emergency stock of protective medical supplies such as masks, gowns, and gloves, and some states are claiming respirators, while claiming that those they have received do not work .

Donald Trump has repeatedly defended Americans that the government has 10,000 respirators in reserve to send to the most affected hospitals. However, as reported by The New York Times , what has not been said is that more than 2,100 respirators are not available after the contract to hold stocks expired last summer, and a delay in signing the new contract to supply This material has delayed the manufacture of the ventilators until the end of January, when the coronavirus crisis was already underway.

Agiliti, the company with which the government signed the new contract, did not receive the task of manufacturing such material until the end of January. According to the newspaper, it is not known if the problems with the respirators predate the expiration of the contract, but the maintenance of the machines has been stopped , thus now thousands of fans that have been delivered to the most affected states and that are not working. "We were given an order to stop work even before we started," Tom Leonard, Agiliti executive director, told The New York Times .

Illinois authorities say they ordered 4,000 respirators and obtained 450 . New Jersey searched 2,300 and got 300. New Mexico has only 370. Virginia requested 350 fans, but has received none. California found that 170 of its fans arrived broken, The New York Times reports. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Supply Agency assured that they were ready for use and that the problems that some States pointed out were a problem with external batteries .

Several employees of the Federal Emergency Supply Agency have revealed that the medical supplies are almost out of stock. The Agency has sent 26 million surgical masks, 11.6 million respirator masks and more than five million masks to the States, but the material has practically been sold out, while the coronavirus is rapidly spreading throughout the United States.

Another growing focus of the coronavirus in the United States is the State of Florida, which now has 7,700 confirmed cases and more than a hundred deaths, figures that have made its governor, Ron DeSantis , finally resign himself to approving an order. of confinement. DeSantis made the decision after speaking with President Donald Trump, who has asked Americans to stay at home until at least April 30. With Florida, there are already about 290 million Americans with confinement orders.

In addition, Standard & Poor's has warned that all economic indicators of the public sector in the United States are already down due to the impact of the coronavirus and that could lead to lower credit quality and a recession similar to or worse than that of 2008.

The agency believes that the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will fall by 2.1% in the first quarter and 12.7% in the second, with a cumulative annual decline that would be at the level of the crisis caused by garbage mortgages. .

Analysts project a scenario that could be even worse, with a recession that would be unprecedented since World War II , with a decline in employment and activity worse than that of the "Great Recession" of 2008.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Coronavirus
  • Covid 19
  • U.S
  • international
  • Donald trump

InternationalUnited States exceeds 1,000 killed by coronavirus

The US suspends for 30 days all flights from Europe to the US due to the coronavirus

China Extending Wuhan closure to April would delay second wave of coronavirus