Anthony Fauci has become a lightning rod for some supporters of President Donald Trump. (File)
Washington:
A coronavirus outbreak in Florida, California and a handful of other hard-hit states could peak, while other parts of the country could be on the verge of growing epidemics, the top U.S. disease official said on Tuesday. infectious.
A spike in cases in Florida, with Texas, Arizona and California this month, overwhelmed hospitals, forced them to turn around to reopen economies and fueled fears that US efforts to control the epidemic does not sizzle.
“They can peak and come back down,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” program regarding the state of the disease. epidemic in several Sunbelt states.
Fauci said there was a “very early indication” that the percentage of positive coronavirus tests was starting to rise in other states, such as Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky.
“It’s a sure-fire sign that you need to be careful.”
The Fauci has become a lightning rod for some supporters of President Donald Trump who accuse the 79-year-old health official of exaggerating the scale and severity of the US epidemic and downplaying possible treatments.
Trump, who is seeking a second White House term in the Nov. 3 election, retweeted a post accusing Fauci and Democrats of cutting the use of the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus. The post included a link to a video of a group avoiding the need for face masks, which many health officials believe are necessary to control the spread of the virus.
A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that the tweets with the video were in violation of the company’s COVID-19 disinformation policy, and the tweets shared by Trump have been deleted.
In his interview with ABC, Fauci defended his work to protect the health of Americans.
“I have not misled the American public under any circumstances,” he said.
Increasing number
The number of people in the United States who have died from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, rose to 148,446 on Monday, with more than 4.3 million confirmed cases, according to the latest Reuters tally.
Florida has recorded 191 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, the largest increase in one day since the outbreak began, its health department reported Tuesday.
The worsening epidemic in the southern state of the United States prompted Trump last week to cancel the events of his Republican Party nominating convention in Jacksonville at the end of August, and the Major League Baseball has postponed some games from its stunted delayed season after a number of Miami Marlins members tested positive for the virus.
Although cases continue to rise in Texas – it is now one of four states with more than 400,000 cases – a drop in current hospitalizations from COVID-19 reported by the state’s health department on Monday provided a glimmer hope.
In New York City, Governor Andrew Cuomo has added Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to a list demanding that visiting travelers be quarantined for 14 days. Thirty-one more states are on the list, which was first unveiled last month.
New York was one of the earliest epicenters of the US epidemic, which first surfaced in China late last year and has now killed more than 654,000 people worldwide.
The rise in the number of deaths and infections in the United States dampened early hopes that the country had surpassed the worst economic fallout in March and April when lockdowns practically crippled business activity and put millions of people at risk. unemployment.
The US Congress on Tuesday embarked on difficult discussions over another coronavirus aid program to help American families and businesses recover from the crisis.
In late March, as the economy began to crater, Congress passed a $ 2.3 trillion stimulus package that included improved unemployment benefits to ease the pain of lockdowns passed to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Senate Republicans on Monday announced a $ 1 trillion coronavirus aid package developed with the White House, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell touted as a “tailored and targeted plan “to reopen schools and businesses, while protecting businesses from lawsuits.
But the proposal sparked immediate opposition from Democrats and Republicans. Democrats have decried it as being too limited compared to their $ 3 trillion proposal that was passed by the House of Representatives in May. Some Republicans called this one too expensive.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, called the Republican proposal a “non-partisan,” telling reporters it provided no support for state and local governments hardest hit by the epidemic.
The Republican proposal would give many Americans direct payments of $ 1,200 each, provide billions in loans to small businesses, and help schools reopen. But that would reduce the current expanded unemployment benefit from $ 600 per week in addition to state unemployment to $ 200 per week. The subsidized unemployment benefit expires on Friday.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
