The total number of global fatalities from the coronavirus pandemic soared past 69,000 on Saturday as US President Donald Trump warned of tough days ahead.
As confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States surpassed 333,000 with more than 9,550 deaths. In the last 24 hours, 1,084 people died in the States; however, there was some encouraging news in Italy and Spain. Europe continues to bear the brunt of the epidemic; however, accounting for over 45,000 of the worldwide deaths, and Britain reported a new daily high in fatalities i.e. 621.
There are now more than 1.27 million confirmed coronavirus cases around the world and there have been more than 69,000 deaths since the virus emerged in China late last year.
Billions of people are living under some form of lockdown. Roughly, half the planet is confined at home with schools and businesses closed, at huge cost to the global economy. Speaking at a White House briefing, Trump said the United States was entering "a time that’s going to be very horrendous" with "some really bad numbers."
"This will probably be the toughest week," he said. "There will be a lot of death." At the same time, Trump said the US cannot remain shut down forever. "Mitigation does work but again, we’re not going to destroy our country," he said. "I’ve said it from the beginning — the cure cannot be worse than the problem. "At a certain point some hard decisions are going to have to be made." Trump doubled down on his support for a drug that is still being tested to treat the coronavirus, saying he might take the medicine himself and encouraging others with doctor approval to do the same. At his daily press briefing, Trump also chided some states for requesting more ventilators from the federal government than he said they needed.
Trump’s optimistic comments on Saturday about the benefits of anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, reflected his tendency to put a positive spin on an issues even as data was still being gathered.
“I may take it,” Trump said. “I’ll have to ask my doctors about that, but I may take it.” Trump has been tested twice for the coronavirus, according to theWhite House, and both times the results were negative.
0 comments: