The United States is by far the hardest-hit country in the world.
Washington:
President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was dropping the Republican nominating convention in Florida as the number of coronavirus cases in the United States surpassed four million.
Trump said he was canceling next month’s event in Jacksonville because it was not a good time to have a “big, crowded convention.”
“The timing of this event is not right, it is just not right with what has happened recently,” he told a White House press conference.
Trump was speaking just hours after Johns Hopkins University announced that there are now more than four million cases of COVID-19 in the United States.
With a total of 4,028,741 cases and more than 144,000 deaths, the United States is by far the hardest-hit country in the world, with Brazil and India ranking second and third for the number of infections. .
The country has experienced a coronavirus outbreak, particularly in the southern and western states, and Texas, California, Alabama, Idaho and Florida have all reported record deaths of a day.
Trump said the convention events would be held “online in one form or another.”
Republican delegates who nominate him as the party’s candidate in the November election against Democrat Joe Biden will meet in North Carolina for a “reasonably quick meeting,” he said.
The main reason for the cancellation of the Jacksonville event was “security,” he said.
“It’s hard for us to say we should have a lot of people crammed into a room and other people shouldn’t,” he said. “There is nothing more crowded than a convention.
“I think we are leading by example.”
The Republican convention was scheduled to be held in Jacksonville August 24-27, but the city has become a hotspot for viruses.
– “ Prepare the opening ” –
Trump also reiterated that he wants schools to open in the fall.
“Being in school, being on campus, is very, very important,” he said. “In cities or states that are currently hot spots … districts may have to delay reopening for a few weeks.
“The decision must be made on the basis of data and facts on the ground in each community, but each district must actively prepare for the opening,” he said.
Signs of hope are emerging in some regions.
The southwestern state of Arizona, which recorded 5,000 cases per day at the end of June, has seen its infections drop steadily throughout this month and the level is now around 2,000 .
New cases in Florida have stagnated since last week, by an average of seven days, while the growth rate in Texas is starting to slow.
Death rates remain high in all three states due to the inevitable lag between disease progression and death.
Florida, for example, on Thursday announced 173 deaths, a new daily record.
– ‘Leveling’ –
Better results in some parts of the country are offset by worse results in others.
The virus continues to rise in California, the most populous state in the country, which reported its highest number of infections on Wednesday with nearly 13,000 new cases.
Some other states, like Missouri in the Midwest, also continue to see their daily records beaten.
Still, the national chart appears to be starting to stabilize at around 70,000 cases per day, according to a seven-day average from the COVID Tracking Project.
The United States plateaued earlier after its first peak in mid-April until the surge that began in mid-June.
“I think the stabilization suggests that some of the more recent efforts to ramp up testing and in particular to mask and ban indoor gatherings such as bars and restaurants may help,” said Thomas Tsai, professor of public health at Harvard. .
“However, as was the case in April, stabilization is not enough – the goal is to remove and not just to mitigate.”
Unless the high number of cases is reduced, it will continue to put undue pressure on hospitals, make it more difficult for schools to reopen next semester and cause more preventable deaths.
More than 80 percent of all intensive care unit beds are occupied in nine states, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services. This is considered dangerously high.
Other experts are more careful about whether the current slowdown really reflects reality.
“I think it’s far too early to tell,” said William Schaffner, professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University.
“There are a lot of people who still ignore social distancing recommendations and masks. I’m still quite pessimistic.”
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
