Virus cases top 100,000 in US
Nation has 100K cases; $2.2T relief bill signed
New York remained the American city hit hardest by the coronavirus Friday but conditions worsened elsewhere, with worrisome infection numbers reported in New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit. Nationwide confirmed cases surpassed 100,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Some economic relief was on the way, as the House passed a $2.2 trillion emergency relief bill that was promptly signed by President Donald Trump.
The president also invoked the Korean War-era Defense Production Act, ordering General Motors to begin manufacturing breathing machines. In New Orleans, a convention center was being converted into a massive hospital.
NEW ORLEANS – New Orleans rushed to build a makeshift hospital in its convention center Friday as troubling new outbreaks bubbled in the United States, deaths surged in Italy and Spain and the world warily trudged through the pandemic that has sickened more than a half-million people.
Punctuating the fact that no one is immune to the new coronavirus, it pierced even the highest echelons of global power, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson becoming the first leader of a major country to test positive.
While New York remained the worsthit city in the U.S., Americans braced for worsening conditions elsewhere, with worrisome numbers being reported in New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit.
“We are not through this. We’re not even halfway through this,” said Joseph Kanter of the Louisiana Department of Health, which has recorded more than 2,700 cases, more than five times what it had a week ago.
New Orleans’ sprawling Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, along the Mississippi River, was being converted into a massive hospital as officials prepared for thousands more patients than they could accommodate.
As the new health crisis loomed, economic catastrophe had already arrived in the city, where many already live in poverty and the tourism industry has screeched to a halt.
“I’ve never been unemployed. But now, all of a sudden: Wop!” said John Moore, the musician best known as Deacon John, who has no gigs to perform with much of the city shut down. “It ain’t just me. It’s everybody.”
In New York, where there are more than 44,000 cases statewide, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 passed 6,000 on Friday, double what it had been three days earlier.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for 4,000 more temporary beds across New York City, where the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center has already been converted into a hospital.
President Donald Trump, after earlier rejecting Cuomo’s pleas for tens of thousands more ventilators and the governor’s calls to use the Korean Warera Defense Production Act, invoked the law Friday, ordering General Motors to begin manufacturing the breathing machines.
Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package, after the House approved the sweeping measure by voice vote. Lawmakers in both parties lined up behind the law to send checks to millions of Americans, boost unemployment benefits, help businesses and toss a life preserver to an overwhelmed health care system.
The U.S. passed 100,000 confirmed cases, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. Italy, the U.S.. and China account for nearly half the world’s almost 600,000 infections and more than half of the nearly 27,000 reported virus deaths.