New York fights virus resurgence as Trump touts vaccine breakthrough
NEW WASHINGTON, Nov 14, (AFP) - New York battled to fend off a second wave of coronavirus infections with new restrictions on bars and restaurants Friday, as Donald Trump said the first Americans would start receiving a vaccine in “a matter of weeks.” In his first public address since being declared the loser of the November 3 election, the US president touted medical breakthroughs that happened under his watch but said he remained firmly against new lockdowns.
He predicted a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which the companies have said is 90 percent effective in trials so far, would receive emergency approval “extremely soon.” “The vaccine will be distributed to frontline workers, the elderly, and high-risk Americans immediately, it will be a matter of weeks,” Trump told reporters at the White House, adding it would be available to the “entire general population” as soon as April.
Cases are surging throughout America and Europe, with governments forced to take more drastic action despite fears about the devastation inflicted on their economies.
The disease has claimed almost 1.3 million lives worldwide and infected close to 53 million people since it first emerged in China in December.
Death rates are high in many cities and parts of the United States and Europe, with areas now recording more new virus cases than they had at the height of the first wave in March. An AFP tally showed the world's daily death toll from the illness eclipsed 10,000 on Friday. The United States, the country hardest hit by COVID-19, meanwhile saw 188,858 more cases and 1,596 more deaths on Friday, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.
“Thanksgiving will lead to a massive new explosion of cases if people don't take it seriously,” said Michael Mina, a Harvard epidemiologist. The US has by far the worst death toll with almost 245,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins, ahead of Brazil on 164,281 and India on 128,668 dead.
The virus is also surging in Europe where authorities are maintaining confinement measures reintroduced in recent weeks. Hospitals are treating more patients in France than during the first peak while Italy has seen the virus affect its less developed south.
Naples braced for further coronavirus restrictions as hospitals risked becoming overwhelmed by new cases, with medics forced to treat patients in their cars.
The latest wave of restrictions come with policymakers worried about how they can persuade people who had only returned to
some sort of normal life a few months ago to lose certain freedoms once again.
But some economists believe the world is slowly learning to work from home and that the hit of new restrictions will not be as severe on many industries this time around.