The price of reopening the economy: tens of thousands of American lives
Updated 1202 GMT (2002 HKT) May 5, 2020
President Donald Trump now knows the price of the haunting bargain required to reopen the country -- tens of thousands more lives in a pandemic that is getting worse not better.
It's one he now appears ready to pay, if not explain to the American people, at a moment of national trial that his administration has constantly underplayed.
Depressing new death toll projections and infection data on Monday dashed the optimism stirred by more than half the country taking various steps to reopen an economy that is vital to Trump's reelection hopes and has shed more than 30 million jobs. Stay-at-home orders slowed the virus and flattened the curve in hotspots like New York and California, but they have so far failed to halt its broader advance, leaving the nation stuck on a grim plateau of about 30,000 new cases a day for nearly a month.
'Painful to see': rise in Russian medics falling prey to Covid-19 as death toll questioned
Lack of PPE cited as reason for mass infections among frontline staff – with suspicions deaths are not recorded
For weeks, paramedic Dmitry Seryogin had warned about the lack of coronavirus testing and inadequate protective gear that he and his colleagues were given in the city of Oryol, about a four-hour drive south of Moscow. If a patient did not explicitly warn they had coronavirus, he said, teams handled likely infections in simple masks and gloves.
Then, the inevitable happened. Two of his colleagues fell ill with coronavirus, then five more, and now, Seryogin says, more than a dozen have contracted the virus. The regional governor has confirmed an outbreak at a medical station, saying staff had been quarantined and he had “set the goal of providing everyone with PPE. No matter where they are going, what kind of call”.
President refuses to let coronavirus task force testify to Congress after being told to ‘take a rest’ over scathing attack on TV host
The Donald Trump administration is refusing to let the members of its coronavirus task force like Dr Deborah Birx and Dr Anthony Fauci testify before Congress, prompting House speaker Nancy Pelosi to speculate that the White House “might be afraid of the truth”.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has meanwhile told the president to “take a rest” following an “extraordinarily cruel” tweet he directed at the presenter on Monday digging up a past tragedy and effectively insinuating he was guilty of murder.
Showing no sign of remorse, Trump has since taken to Twitter again to lash out at lawyer and pundit George Conway, married to his adviser Kellyanne Conway, after taking exception to an attack ad he was involved with, writing: “I don’t know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad.”
Why did Israel's coronavirus epicenter exit a lockdown overnight?
'We don't even have enough information and that which we do have is very worrying. This is the most disturbing infection epicenter in Israel today.'
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
MAY 5, 2020
The Bedouin town of Hura in the Negev exited a lockdown on Monday night despite pleas by the mayor of the town, the Health Ministry and Israel Police to extend the lockdown and the fact that the town continues to have the highest coronavirus case doubling rate in the country (2.95).
The town of 22,000 residents was declared as a Red Zone, meaning that it must be put under lockdown in order to prevent the spread of the virus to other locations.
Paris to turn more streets over to bicycles as Covid-19 lockdown lifts
Some of the busiest traffic arteries in Paris will be reserved for cyclists in a bid to limit crowds on public transport when France begins lifting its coronavirus lockdown next week, the city's mayor said.
"In total, 50 kilometres (30 miles) of lanes normally used by cars will be reserved for bicycles," Anne Hidalgo told the Parisien newspaper in an interview published Tuesday.
She also said another 30 streets would be made pedestrian-only, "in particular around schools to avoid groups of people," she said.
Philippines largest TV network ABS-CBN ordered shut
Allies of President Duterte refused to renew station's 25-year licence following his tirades against the company.
ABS-CBN, the Philippines' largest television network, has been ordered to cease operations after President Rodrigo Duterte's allies in Congress refused to renew the station's 25-year licence.
In an order issued on Tuesday, the government agency tasked with awarding broadcasting licences said "absent a valid Congressional Franchise, as required by law", the network should stop its various television and radio operations.
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