Cities fear surge in victims as America now worst-hit country with 20,000 deaths
CHICAGO and other mid-western American cities are bracing for a potential surge in victims after the number of citizens dying from the coronavirus eclipsed Italy’s total to become the highest in the world.
The death toll in America passed 20,000, while Italy reported the figure there had climbed to nearly 19,500. The number of new deaths each day was about three times higher on average in the US than in Italy.
Deaths rose more than 9,000 for the week in America compared with fewer than 3,000 in Italy.
About half the deaths in the US were in the New York metropolitan area, where hospital admissions were nevertheless slowing and other indicators suggested social distancing was “flattening the curve” of infections.
But with authorities warning the crisis in New York is far from over, the city announced its 1.1 million-pupil school system will remain shut for the rest of the academic year.
Meanwhile, European countries used roadblocks, drones, helicopters, mounted patrols and the threat of fines to keep people from travelling over the Easter weekend, as glorious weather posed an extra test of public discipline.
“Don’t do silly things,” said Domenico Arcuri, Italy’s special commissioner for the virus emergency. “Don’t go out, continue to behave responsibly as you have done until today, use your head and your sense of responsibility.”
Authorities there set up roadblocks on main thoroughfares and along highway exits to discourage people from going on trips.
France, meanwhile, deployed 160,000 police, including officers on horseback who patrolled beaches and parks.
The pandemic’s centre of gravity has long since shifted from China to Europe and America, which now has by far the largest number of confirmed cases, with more than half a million.
But with infections levelling off in Italy, Spain and other places on the Continent, governments took tentative steps towards loosening the weeks-long shutdowns of much of public life.
Some countries are planning small first steps out of the lockdown, even as public health authorities warned the virus could come back with a vengeance if people are not careful enough.
Austria aims to reopen small shops tomorrow, and Spain, with more than 16,000 dead, plans to start rolling back the strictest of its measures today, when it will allow workers in some non-essential industries to return to factories and construction sites after a two-week stoppage.
Spanish authorities said they would distribute 10 million face masks at major train and subway stations in an attempt to prevent a jump in infections.
Italy continued to include all non-essential manufacturing in an extension of its national lockdown until May 3, but Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte held out hope some industry could reopen earlier if conditions permit.