xi's moments
Home | Americas

Trump looks to loosen virus restrictions

By AI HEPING in New York | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2020-03-24 11:00

US President Donald Trump speaks next to Vice President Mike Pence and FEMA administrator Pete Gaynor during a news conference, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Washington, March 22, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]

President Donald Trump on Monday signaled his administration will use data to look at recommending "new protocols'' that would allow local economies in the US to "cautiously resume" activities at the appropriate time amid the coronavirus outbreak.

"Our country wasn't built to be shut down," Trump said at a White House news briefing Monday evening. "This is not a country that was built for this."

Meanwhile, Congress stalled on an economic stimulus package Monday as the Federal Reserve acted to keep the economy from moving into a recession or worse.

Stocks dropped even as the Fed said it plans to purchase an unlimited amount of Treasury and mortgage securities to support financial markets.

Analysts blamed the stocks' decline on the fact that Congress still has not agreed on a $1.8 trillion economic stimulus package. Republicans and Democrats are blaming one another for the delay.

"Are you kidding me?" Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, said on the Senate floor. "This is not a juicy political opportunity, this is a national emergency."

But for a second day, Democrats on Monday again blocked a deal until they could secure stronger protections for workers and restrictions for bailed-out businesses.

Trump signed an executive order Monday aimed at preventing price-gouging and hoarding of critical medical supplies amid the coronavirus outbreak.

He is authorized under the Defense Production Act to prohibit stockpiling of needed resources by designating them as scarce or threatened by persons accumulating excessive amounts.

Trump has declined to use the act to order US companies to manufacture needed masks and ventilators and other supplies, saying he doesn't want to nationalize American companies.

Earlier Monday, New York Governor Mario Cuomo urged that the act be implemented, saying it doesn't nationalize any industry.

New York is now the center of the coronavirus outbreak in the US. Cuomo said that data on Monday indicated that the state accounts for roughly 6 percent of coronavirus cases worldwide. He said there are now 20,909 confirmed cases in the state and at least 157 deaths.

And Dr Deborah L. Birx, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, gave the city more bad news at Trump's news conference Monday evening: The rate of infection showed that the virus has been spreading in the New York City metropolitan region for weeks.

She said that that nearly 1 in 1,000 people in the New York metropolitan area have the virus, an "attack rate" five times that of other areas.

Birx added that 28 percent of tests for coronavirus in the region were coming up positive, while in the rest of the country, the rate is less than 8 percent.

"To all of my friends and colleagues in New York, this is the group that needs to absolutely social-distance and self-isolate at this time," she said. "Clearly, the virus had been circulating there for a number of weeks to have this level of penetrance into the general community."

Cuomo also said he would issue an emergency order requiring the state's hospitals to increase their capacities by at least 50 percent.

On Monday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNN that hospitals in the city had only "days" to get critical supplies before doctors will be unable to save the lives of those who might otherwise survive.

On Monday evening, he said that the federal government was sending the city 400 desperately needed ventilators. The city had 2,000 ventilators available as of last week. The mayor has said city hospitals would need 15,000 ventilators to get through the end of May.

"That's going to make a huge difference," de Blasio said. "Our need for ventilators is in the thousands, but we're going to fight every day to stay ahead of this curve. We're going to literally be in a race against time."

After frequently saying the Trump administration was not doing enough to help the city, de Blasio said he had a "very substantial conversation" with Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence on Sunday night about getting additional supplies, medical personnel and financial support.

More states on Monday enacted stay-at-home restrictions: Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Oregon became the latest ones.

"If we all do our part and simply stay home, we have a shot," Michigan Govenor Gretchen Whitmer said at a news conference on Monday, citing a study that she said projected that 70 percent of Michigan's 10 million residents could become infected if nothing changed. "Without a comprehensive national strategy, we, the states, must take action," she said.

Global Edition
BACK TO THE TOP
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349