It’s like a ‘bullet train’

New York issues warning as Olympics postponed, cases soar

THE Tokyo Olympics were put off to next year as coronavirus deaths and infections surged in Europe and the US, with New York warning it is about to get hit by a “bullet train”.

Stocks soared as Washington politicians closed in on a nearly $2 trillion deal to help businesses and ordinary Americans pull through the crisis.

Around the globe, India, with 1.3 billion people, or onesixth of the Earth’s population, ordered the biggest lockdown in the world. A flicker of hope that Italy might be turning the corner faded after officials reported an increase in new cases and deaths. And Spain had so many bodies it commandeered an ice rink to store them.

More than 415,000 people worldwide have been infected and more than 18,500 have died, according to a running count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

In New York City, one of the biggest hot spots, authorities rushed to set up thousands of hospital beds for potential victims. The number of cases is doubling every three days, threatening to swamp the city’s intensive care units in the weeks ahead, Governor Andrew

Cuomo said. The state has recorded more than 200 deaths, or one-third of the US total.

“One of the forecasters said to me: ‘We were looking at a freight train coming across the country’,” the governor said.

“We’re now looking at bullet train.”

Mr Cuomo proposed the country send thousands of ventilators to New York City a and demanded that President Donald Trump use wartime authority to force manufacturers to produce them.

With Americans’ lives and livelihoods hanging in the balance, Mr Trump said he hoped to reopen the country in less than three weeks. “I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” he said during a Fox News virtual town hall.