Authorities in New York, the US epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic, on Monday called on Donald Trump to declare national coercive confinement, while on the contrary it ensured a return to business " very soon ". The first American metropolis, economic capital of the country with 8.6 million inhabitants, counted Monday morning more than 12 000 cases, that is to say nearly a third of the American cases, and nearly 100 deaths. Five hundred and sixty people died in the United States.
Faced with this increasingly dramatic situation, anxiety was mounting among the inhabitants of this city, usually a symbol of hyperactivity and decibels. The streets were exceptionally quiet after the entry into force on Sunday of new rules limiting activity to businesses deemed essential – supermarkets, pharmacies, Internet providers – and forcing people to stay at home as much as possible, even if the offenders are not currently exposed to any penalty. "These containment measures taken by New York and California must be everywhere" in the United States, insisted the mayor, Bill de Blasio. "We have to take these extreme measures. "
"New York is getting closer to Italy"
Almost a third of Americans live in some form of confinement. Washington, Michigan and New Mexico were the latest to order people to stay on Monday, and the California governor has tightened restrictions. "Unfortunately, we see that New York is getting closer to Italy"Jerome Adams, federal public health administrator, said, regretting that people are not seriously implementing the federal non-coercive confinement recommendations announced last week for two weeks.
De Blasio, like New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, reiterated their calls to the federal government to order private companies to make respirators and masks, which are sorely lacking in the United States, as in many other countries. "Yes, this is an assertion of government power over private companies, so what? It’s a national emergency, said Cuomo. We can no longer continue to be supplied piecemeal. "
So far, Republican Donald Trump has refused to impose such measures, worried about their impact on the economy, even though about one in three Americans is already expected to live in confinement. "We cannot let the remedy be worse than the problem itself"he tweeted Monday as the US Senate again failed to agree on a major economic stimulus package. Later, he even declared that the United States would " very soon " reopen to the business world, "Much earlier than three or four months, as someone suggested. Much earlier ».
For the city of New York alone, the mayor called for the urgent dispatch of "Hundreds of respirators and hundreds of thousands, then millions of masks". "If they don't start arriving this week, we will get to the point where people cannot be saved when they could have been saved", he alerted. New York is also waiting for help from the National Guard and the US Army Corps of Engineers to install additional hospital beds. The conference center at the Javits Center in Manhattan must in particular be transformed into a hospital with a capacity of 1,000 beds, pending the conversion of certain hotels, which are now deprived of tourists.
New reality
Cuomo, who went there on Monday, said he hoped he would be ready by then. "One week to ten days". The governor also signed a decree requiring New York hospitals to increase their capacity by 50% – to 75,000 beds – while calling on them to target 100%. A hospital ship, the Comfort, with a capacity of 1,000 beds, is also due to leave for New York in two weeks, according to Defense Minister Mark Esper.
New Yorkers, accustomed to traffic jams and crowds, adapted as best they could to this new reality made up of almost deserted streets, stopped construction sites, closed schools or drawn iron curtains. Buses and yellow taxis continued to circulate, notably to allow health professionals and emergency services to work, but often ran empty.
Christian Hofer, 42, the father of a family of two who was very organized in the face of the epidemic, said he had trouble keeping calm. “I go through a whole range of emotions, from nervousness to a feeling of absurdity: I saw a“ meme ”on the Internet which said“ Our grandparents were called to war, we are called to stay on the couch… ”It helps put things in perspective”, he explained to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"I do teletherapy with my patients, I had never done this before, said Lauren, a psychologist, who only gave her first name. I try to give them soothing things to do, tell them they're not alone, and make myself more available. "
Our selection of articles on the coronavirus
