Faint glimmers of hope as virus deaths slow in places

NEW YORK: The steep rise in coronavirus deaths in New York appears to be levelling off in a possible sign that social distancing is working in the most lethal hot spot in the US, the governor said — a trend that seems to have taken hold even more convincingly in hard-hit Italy and Spain.

Governor Andrew Cuomo warned that this is no time to relax the restrictions aimed at keeping people from getting too close to one another, and he ordered bigger fines against violators. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved to intensive care after his condition deteriorated.

US President Donald Trump said during a White House press briefing: “Americans are all praying for his recovery. He’s been a really good friend. He’s been really something very special, strong, resolute, doesn’t quit, doesn’t give up.”

Trump said he asked “leading companies” to contact officials in London about therapeutics that could help Johnson, describing them as “a very complex treatment of things that they have just recently developed”. “We have contacted all of Boris’ doctors, and we’ll see what’s going to take place, but they are ready to go,” Trump told reporters, without specifying the companies.

Meanwhile, stocks rallied on Wall Street and around the world on the news out of the US and in Europe, where deaths and new infections appear to be slowing not only in some of the most severely stricken countries but in the Netherlands and Germany as well. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up nearly 1,300 points, or 6 per cent, by early afternoon.

Outbreaks in other places were headed in the opposite direction. France recorded its highest 24-hour death toll since the epidemic began, 833. And Japan considered a state of emergency for Toyko and other areas because of soaring infections in the country with the world’s third-largest economy and its oldest population.

Worldwide, more than 1.3 million people have been confirmed infected and over 70,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The true numbers are certainly much higher, because of limited testing, different ways nations count the dead and deliberate under-reporting by some governments.

The number of dead in New York state rose past 4,700, and the death toll in New York City closed in on the 2,753 lives lost at the World Trade Centre on 9/11. The state has been averaging just under 600 deaths per day for the past four days.

Cuomo also reported that the number of new people entering hospitals daily has dropped, as has the number of critically ill patients who require ventilators.

At the same time, he ordered schools and non-essential businesses to remain closed until the end of the month, announced he is doubling the fines for rule breakers to 1,000 US dollars, and lambasted New Yorkers for being out in parks over the weekend, calling it “wholly unacceptable”.

Even as he announced that the outbreak in New York may be at or near its peak, he warned that hospitals are under extreme pressure.

To help ease the strain, a hospital ship sent to New York City can now be used for Covid-19 patients, Trump said. The governor tweeted that the USNS Comfort would add 1,000 beds staffed by federal personnel. “This will provide much-needed relief to our over stressed hospital systems,” Cuomo wrote.

Elsewhere around the world, Austria and the Czech Republic both began openly discussing how to ease some of the crippling restrictions, starting with reopening some small shops and garden centres next week.

Italy’s day-to-day increase in new Covid-19 cases dipped again, for the lowest one-day increase in early three weeks. The country, ravaged by the virus, also saw a drop for the third straight day in intensive care beds occupied by infected patients.

Italy still has, by far, the world’s highest coronavirus death toll - over 16,500 - but the pressure on intensive care units in the north has eased so much that the region is no longer airlifting patients to other regions.

Nursing coordinator Maria Berardelli at the hard-hit Pope John XXIII hospital in Bergamo said that while the numbers of new patients had eased up a bit, hospital staff members were still pulling long, difficult shifts.

In Spain, deaths and new infections dropped again. The health ministry reported 637 new deaths, the lowest toll in 13 days, for a total of over 13,000 dead. New infections were also the lowest in two weeks.