A about-face almost three months before the elections. The American President, Donald Trump, on Thursday, July 23, renounced the Republican convention scheduled for Jacksonville (Florida), due to the significant circulation of the new coronavirus in the southern United States.
The epidemic seems to be stalling in several regions of the country, even though California still recorded a record number of contaminations. In this context of strong uncertainties, Mr. Trump announced that he was canceling the ” big “ Republican convention scheduled for Jacksonville to induct him as the party’s candidate for the November 3 presidential election.
“The timing is not good”
“We are not going to have a big public convention as such, this is not the time”, he said, believing that it was his duty as president to “Protect the Americans”. Mr. Trump also added:
“The timing for this event is not good, considering what has happened recently – the outbreak [des infections] in Florida – this is wrong. “
The Republican convention was originally scheduled for Charlotte, North Carolina, from August 24 to 27, but the state’s Democratic governor had wanted a smaller format to meet health recommendations. Some events held in Charlotte out of respect for signed contracts will still take place “And we will have online meetings”Mr. Trump said.
Accused of having long played down the scale of the crisis to promote his chances of re-election, the New York billionaire has changed his tone in recent days. Admitting that the situation was still going ” to get worse “, he began to advocate wearing a mask, a gesture “Patriotic”, according to him.
The Democrats for their part announced a month ago that their convention, scheduled in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) from August 17 to 20, would be almost entirely virtual. Former Vice President Joe Biden will personally accept his nomination as party candidate.
The most bereaved country
The United States is the most bereaved country with more than 144,000 dead. And the country reached 4 million cases on Thursday, with a million positive tests in fifteen days.
However, if we stick to the official number of new cases detected, several states, such as Arkansas, Iowa, North Carolina and South Carolina, halted the exponential rise that was observed in June. . The number of new cases detected in Arizona reached 20,000 in seven days, but it is 11% less than the previous week and hospitalizations there are clearly down.
Across the country, however, the epidemic is far from contained. The number of new cases increased by 7% in one week, less than the + 20% recorded in previous weeks. The country has identified more than 60,000 new cases daily for nine days.
