States set to ease restrictions
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK: The United States coronavirus death toll climbed above 58,000 yesterday, greater than the loss of American life from the Vietnam War, as Florida’s governor met President Donald Trump to discuss an easing of economic restraints.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, among the latest to lock down his state against the pandemic, has been weighing whether to join other states in a relaxation of workplace restrictions and stayathome orders that have been credited with slowing the contagion but have battered the economy.
DeSantis’ meeting at the White House came as Florida reported its highest singleday death toll from the coronavirus, and two days before the state’s stayathome order was due to expire.
Speaking to reporters with Trump in the Oval Office, DeSantis said he would announce a plan today for a ‘‘phase one’’ loosening of restrictions on economic activity.
Declining to give details, DeSantis said: ‘‘We’re going to approach it in a very measured, thoughtful and datadriven way.’’
Despite a high proportion of elderly residents, who are especially vulnerable to the virus, and having waited until early April to lock down its economy, Florida has not been hit as hard by the health crisis as states such as New York and New Jersey.
Still, Florida would become the most populous of about a dozen states forging ahead with economic reopenings despite a lack of widescale virus testing and the means to trace close contacts of newly infected individuals, as recommended in White House guidelines on April 16.
Public health experts have warned that a premature rollback of socialdistancing policies could trigger a resurgence of infections.
Florida reported a record 83 new deaths and more than 700 new infections from the previous 24 hours yesterday. The state has so far tallied 32,846 cases of Covid19, including 1171 deaths.
DeSantis has drawn sharp criticism of his handling of the health crisis from Democrats in Florida, a key electoral swing state in Trump’s November 3 reelection bid.
Economic fallout from the unprecedented clampdown on social interaction and business has been devastating.
The number of Americans seeking jobless benefits over the past five weeks has reached 26.5 million — nearly one in six US workers — and the Trump Administration has forecast an April unemployment rate exceeding 16%.
One senior White House economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, said the nation faced the ‘‘the biggest shock since the Great Depression’’ but also predicted a strong rebound in the fourth quarter as the coronavirus faded.
Confronting a different challenge posed by the pandemic, Trump yesterday invoked national defence powers to order meatprocessing plants to stay open to ensure a steady food supply, drawing a backlash from union leaders who said atrisk workers needed greater protection.
Outbreaks among employees of several leading US meatpacking companies — deemed essential businesses during the crisis — have halted operations at about 20 slaughterhouses and processing plants where tight working conditions make social distancing difficult.
The larger human toll has likewise been staggering. As of yesterday, 58,605 have died of Covid19 in the United States, according to a Reuters tally, eclipsing in a few months the total number of Americans killed during 16 years of US military involvement in
Vietnam.
The number of known US coronavirus infections has doubled over the past 18 days to more than 1 million. The actual count is believed to be higher, state public health officials cautioning that shortages of trained workers and materials had limited testing capacity, leaving many infections unrecorded.
As further evidence that caution may still be in order, an influential University of Washington research model often cited by White House officials and public health officials revised its projected US coronavirus death toll upwards yesterday to more than 74,000 by August 4, against its previous forecast of 67,000.
The model showed that while most states appeared to have reached the crest of the pandemic, seven others — including Mississippi, Texas, Utah and Hawaii — might be just peaking now or in the coming weeks.
About 30% of American cases have occurred in New York state, the epicentre of the US outbreak, followed by New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, California, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom said kerbside retail, manufacturing and other ‘‘lowerrisk workplaces’’ should reopen within weeks as testing and contacttracing improved.
He also said California’s public education system could welcome students back as early as July to make up for a ‘‘learning loss’’ during school closures and to allow parents in the broader workforce to return to work.
The earliestknown US deaths came in February on the West Coast. — Reuters