The American Senate and the White House found, Wednesday, March 25 in the morning, an agreement on a massive stimulus plan of about 2,000 billion dollars (1,850 billion euros) supposed to allow to cushion the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the american economy.
Negotiations on the largest stimulus package ever approved in one go by Congress have been underway since Friday. The plan includes direct financial aid for Americans, credits for SMEs, the unemployed and hospitals. It must be voted on Wednesday, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell said, and then it will still have to be passed by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives before being promulgated by Donald Trump.
Earlier Tuesday, the American president had expressed his impatience with the health crisis and said to bet on a levee " fast " restrictions, by mid-April for part of the country, despite the sharp acceleration in the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States. "You have to go back to work, much sooner than people think", launched the President on Fox News.
While conceding that the restrictions would last a little longer than the initial fifteen days, he promised to "Reopen" the country "Quickly", explaining that we were starting to see "A light at the end of the tunnel".
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"Nice deadline" for Easter
"I would love to reopen by Easter", which falls this year on April 12, he said on several occasions, assuring, despite the reservations of many scientists and local officials, that this deadline was realistic provided that people returned to work "By practicing social distancing". He later clarified that this "Great deadline" Easter would be especially good for the less populated parts of the country and where the epidemic would have been considered contained, as "Large portions of Texas, territories in the West". Anthony Fauci, infectious disease specialist for the Covid-19 team, advocated the "Flexibility" in the relaxation of restrictions, which must be done "On a daily or weekly basis".
Donald Trump had resolved to issue very strict recommendations a week ago. But, while 40% of the American population is confined to their home or on the verge of being – restrictions vary from one State to another – he now does not hide his fear of seeing these draconian measures and stopping the activity go on forever. The Pentagon has been less optimistic in banking on " several months " crisis, with a return to normal around June-July only in the United States.
Soon the new epicenter of the pandemic
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday that the United States could soon overtake Europe and become the new global epicenter of the pandemic. "We are seeing a very strong acceleration in the number of cases in the United States"said a WHO spokesperson. The United States counted Tuesday at the end of the afternoon nearly 700 dead and more than 53,000 officially declared cases of Covid-19, according to the count of the Johns Hopkins university, which refers.
In New York State, "The rate of new infections doubles every three days", warned its governor, Andrew Cuomo. The epidemic could reach its peak there "Within fourteen to twenty-one days", sooner than expected. Federal authorities have called on residents who recently fled the New York area, to avoid contagion, to observe a quarantine of two weeks to prevent any risk of contamination.
This state of nearly 20 million inhabitants is therefore preparing for the worst and continues to demand from the federal government medical equipment, starting with thousands of respirators. It has also increased the need for additional hospital beds to 140,000, while a first emergency hospital is expected to be operational in about eight days in Manhattan.
Death of a teenager
Despite this race against the clock, the President of the United States has therefore immediately confirmed a new change in tone distilled in recent days. After saying to myself " in war " last week against this "Invisible enemy", Donald Trump goes back to his initial remarks, when he was accused by many experts of minimizing the threat.
The American billionaire has thus started to compare the current pandemic to the seasonal flu. "We lose thousands and thousands of people every year from the flu, and we don't stop the country", he said during his long interview on Fox News. "You can destroy a country by closing it this way", he said, adding that a "Severe recession or depression" could kill more people than the epidemic, especially if the economic crisis were to result "Suicides by the thousands".
California authorities urged youths to follow safety precautions after the deaths of three Covid-19 people, including "A young person under the age of 18" who lived in Lancaster, near Los Angeles. It is believed to be the first known case of death affecting a young person on American soil.
The city of Miami in Florida, where many young people continued to party last week, ignoring the precautionary instructions, in turn imposed on Tuesday compulsory confinement to its 470,000 inhabitants.
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