Coronavirus: nearly 2,000 dead in 24 hours in the United States, glimmer of hope in New York

The United States had, Tuesday, April 7, the worst daily record in the world since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, with 1,939 people died in the last 24 hours, according to the count of Johns Hopkins University. A total of 12,722 deaths have been recorded. The world's leading power is thus approaching the two most bereaved countries to date, Italy (17,127 dead) and Spain (13,798).

The United States alone also accounts for more than a quarter of officially declared cases worldwide: 396,223 in total, or 29,609 more in one day.

"America continues to perform more tests than any other country in the world and I think that's probably why we have more cases," President Donald Trump said on Tuesday at his press conference. daily, citing some 1.8 million tests to date in the country. "I know very well that some very populous countries have many more cases than we do, but they do not declare them," he added.

Donald Trump attacks the WHO

The President also threatened to suspend the American contribution to the World Health Organization (WHO). "We are going to suspend (the payment) of sums intended for the WHO", he declared before turning back, saying that he only wanted to study this possibility. "I am not saying that I am going to do it but we are going to examine this possibility," he said. "Everything seems very favorable to China, it is not acceptable," he said.

The Republican billionaire wrote a particularly virulent tweet against the organization on Tuesday morning. "WHO has really crashed," he wrote. "Strangely, they are largely funded by the United States and yet very focused on China. We are going to take a closer look at the matter," he added.

The WHO really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?

New York State remains the country's main focus, with nearly 5,500 dead - 731 in the past 24 hours, a record - and 140,000 cases, mostly in New York City, the economic capital today almost stopped.

Encouraging figures

But local authorities have put forward more encouraging figures, such as the average of new hospitalizations recorded in the past three days. "If you look, the three-day average is down, which is good news," said Governor Andrew Cuomo in his daily press briefing. Projections show that "we are reaching a plateau in the total number of hospitalizations," said the governor. "We see the increase and we see that it starts to flatten."

The mayor of New York, whose schools and most non-essential activities have been shutdown since March 16, has also cautiously highlighted some encouraging trends. "It is far too early to draw conclusions", but "in the past two days, something has started to change (...), we see a little improvement in the needs for respirators", this allows hospitals to "last longer," said Bill de Blasio.

The beginning of a slowdown in hospital admissions also seems to be valid for the greater New York region, which extends to the neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut, their governors, Phil Murphy and Ned Lamont, said on Tuesday. But all these officials also called on especially not to compromise these first positive signs, and to strictly respect the measures of containment and social distancing which have put an end to this key region for the American economy.

Wisconsin High Risk Elections

Despite instructions from most states, elections were held in Wisconsin on Tuesday. Masked and trying to respect the safety distances, voters voted for local elections and the Democratic primary between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, who denounced the holding of an election which could prove to be "deadly".

With AFP

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