The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Trump declares national emergency
US President Donald Trump has announced that he is declaring the Covid-19 crisis a national emergency.
The decision comes as Washington struggles with providing Americans with relief and officials race to slow the spread of the outbreak.
Speaking from the Rose Garden, Mr Trump said: “I am officially declaring a national emergency.”
He said the emergency would open up $50 billion for state and local governments to respond to the outbreak.
Mr Trump said he was also giving US health and human services secretary Alex Azar emergency authorities to waive federal regulations and laws to give doctors and hospitals “flexibility” in treating patients.
Mr Trump spoke as negotiations continue between the White House and Congress on an aid package, but there was no announcement of a breakthrough as House Democrats prepared to vote on their own measure yesterday.
“We will defeat this threat,” Mr Trump said.
“When America is tested America rises to the occasion.”
The president added: “This will pass.” Elsewhere, tens of millions of students are staying at home on three continents, security forces are on standby to guard against large gatherings of people and bars, restaurants and offices have closed to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The virus edged closer to the world’s power centres, with positive tests for the Canadian prime minister’s wife, a senior aide to Iran’s supreme leader, a Brazilian official who met President Trump and an Australian cabinet minister who met the US attorney general and also Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka.
French president Emmanuel Macron announced that leaders of the world’s largest democracies, the G7, would hold a video-conference summit on Monday to discuss co-ordinating research on a vaccine and treatments, as well as an economic response.
Channelling wartime rhetoric in the face of a microscopic enemy, leaders appealed for solidarity to battle a threat that appeared to expand exponentially. They vowed to protect not just the sick, but those sacrificing their livelihoods and education for the greater good.
With promises of financial support from the European Commission, France and Germany, stocks surged on Wall Street and in Europe a day after the market’s worst session in more than three decades.
With new infections rising sharply in Spain, the government put 60,000 people in four towns on a mandatory lockdown – the nation’s first and Europe’s second after drastic nationwide measures in Italy.
In Madrid, which is struggling with nearly 2,000 infections, many in nursing homes, the government was pooling intensive care units and considering offers by hotel chains to transform rooms into sick wards.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced a two-week state of emergency and pledged to “mobilise all resources”, including the military, to contain a sharp rise in cases.