Trump: Outbreak will get worse before it gets better
US President shifts tone, India records startling statistic
In an abrupt about turn, US President Donald Trump warned yesterday that the “nasty horrible” coronavirus will get worse before it gets better — but he also tried to paint a rosy picture of efforts with governors to conquer the disease that has claimed more than 140,000 American lives in five months.
Meanwhile, in India, 20 per cent of the population has Covid-19 antibodies, indicating the virus is far more widespread than suspected. And in South Africa, hospitals are concerned they won’t be able to cope after a steep spike in infections.
After a three-month hiatus from his freewheeling daily virus briefings, Trump returned to the podium, without the public health experts who were staples of his previous events, but keeping close to scripted remarks prepared by aides. He professed a newfound respect for the protective face masks he has seldom worn, while admonishing young people for crowding bars.
It all marked a delayed recognition by Trump that the economic reopening he’s been championing since April has been imperilled by spiking Covid cases nationwide.
“It will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better,” Trump said from the White House. But he also touted a reduction in deaths and progress on vaccines and treatments for Covid-19, which he referred to repeatedly as a the “China virus”.
Large areas of the country are now battling rising infections and growing deaths, and some states are once again having to close businesses and rethink school in autumn. Many retailers themselves are insisting their customers don masks.
Yesterday, Trump took to Twitter to claim that “by comparison to most other countries, who are suffering greatly, we are doing very well — and we have done things few other countries could have done!”
In fact, the US has the most confirmed cases and deaths from the virus in the world — and ranks near the top on a per-capita basis as well.
Florida is leading the states on that metric, its skyrocketing coronavirus death rate now higher than any other state, edging out Texas, which has about 25 per cent more people.
Florida recorded a further 134 deaths yesterday, bringing its daily average for the past week to 115, topping the 112 deaths a day Texas reported during that time.
Overall, 5317 people have died in Florida from Covid-19 since March 1 and nearly 370,000 have tested positive for the disease.
In Texas, more than 500 women at a federal medical prison have tested positive for the coronavirus, in one of the largest confirmed outbreaks at a federal prison, the Bureau of Prisons said.
The number of confirmed cases at the Federal Medical CenterCarswell in Fort Worth jumped to 509 on Tuesday, just one day after the Bureau of Prisons reported that 200 women there had tested positive for Covid-19.
In India, more than one in five people in Delhi have been infected with the coronavirus, according to a study released yesterday, indicating that most cases in the Indian capital region have gone undetected.
The National Centre for Disease Control tested 21,387 people selected randomly across Delhi, the state that includes New Delhi, and found that 22.86 per cent had antibodies to the virus. Delhi, with a population of 29 million, has officially reported 123,747 cases and 3663 deaths.
The study, however, indicates there are more than 6.6 million likely cases, with most not identified or tested.
With more than 1.1 million reported cases, India has the third-highest confirmed caseload in the world after the United States and Brazil. But compared to those two countries and to global averages, the percentage of the population that has died from the virus is significantly lower.
India’s death toll rose to 28,084 yesterday, with the number of recoveries at 724,577.
Experts suspect that many virus deaths, especially among the elderly, are not being picked up in official fatality numbers. Testing is even more limited outside the capital.
In South Africa, there is growing concern that hospitals may not be able to cope with the numbers of Covid-19 patients expected in the next two months.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa continues to surge, accounting for more than 50 per cent of cases in Africa and making it the country with the fifth-highest number of cumulative reported infections in the world.
South Africa has 373,628 confirmed cases, including 5173 deaths, according to figures released by the health minister.
The rapid rise of the rate of infections in the country has raised concerns about whether South Africa’s hospitals will be able to cope with the influx of Covid-19 patients when the peak of cases is expected between August and September.
Many hospitals in Gauteng province — South Africa’s virus epicentre, which includes the largest city of Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria — are already feeling the pressure of increasing numbers of Covid19 patients.
The accelerating spread of Covid19 in South Africa could be a precursor to what will happen in the rest of Africa, said World Health Organisation executive director of emergencies, Dr Mike Ryan.
“I think this isn’t just a wake-up call for South Africa, We need to take what is happening in Africa very seriously,” Ryan told the WHO weekly news conference in Geneva on Monday. “Many of those countries exist in the midst of fragility and conflict, many of them need external help and support.”