Countercurrents – March 30, 2020
Coronavirus Pandemic: Deaths Surge
By Countercurrent
According to Johns Hopkins University on Sunday, there are more than 721,000 coronavirus cases and 33,900 deaths worldwide.
The U.S. now leads the world with more than 120,000 confirmed cases while the U.S. coronavirus deaths surge past 2,000.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that the U.S. could experience more than 100,000 deaths and millions of infections.
Italy
Coronavirus deaths in Italy fall for second consecutive day. Over 10,000 people have now died of the disease in Italy, followed by more than 6,528 in Spain, 3,100 in China, 2,500 in Iran and 2,300 in France.
Italy’s Civil Protection department said 756 people died Sunday, which is 133 fewer deaths than the 889 reported the day before. In total, 10,779 people have died due to COVID-19 in Italy making up a third of global deaths.
Spain
The number of people to have died after testing positive for the coronavirus in Spain has risen to 6,528 after 838 more people died. Another 6,549 cases have been reported in the country, bringing the total there to 78,797.
Spain has been in lockdown for two weeks under a national state of emergency.
Prime minister Pedro Sanchez’s Cabinet will approve on Sunday a new decree to tighten those controls and impede workers from commuting to work in all industries unrelated to health care and food production and distribution, for two weeks.
Germany
Germany has so far registered 62,095 coronavirus cases, with 541 patients succumbing to the disease.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in her first address to the nation on the coronavirus pandemic, appealed to citizens’ reason and discipline to slow the spread of the virus.
China
The city at the centre of China’s coronavirus outbreak has reopened tube trains and long-distance train services in another step towards ending restrictions that confined millions of people to their homes.
Passengers in Wuhan in the central province of Hubei had to wear masks and be checked for fever after service resumed Saturday. Signs were posted telling passengers to sit with empty seats between them.
Most access to Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, was suspended on January 23. The last controls that block residents of Wuhan from leaving Hubei are due to be lifted on April 8.
China sends train with medical supplies to Germany
The first cargo train to Europe since the start of the outbreak left China for Germany on Saturday carrying medical supplies, car parts, electronic productions and optical communication fiber.
Absence of robust screening until it was ‘far too late’ revealed failures U.S. government
A March 29, 2020 dated report by the New York Times said:
“The absence of robust screening until it was ‘far too late’ revealed failures across government, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, a former CDC director. Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, said the Trump administration had ‘incredibly limited’ views of the pathogen’s potential impact. Dr. Margaret Hamburg, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said the lapse enabled ‘exponential growth of cases.’”
The report – “The Lost Month: How a Failure to Test Blinded the U.S. to COVID-19” – by Michael D. Shear, Abby Goodnough, Sheila Kaplan, Sheri Fink, Katie Thomas and Noah Weiland said:
“Early on, the dozen federal officials charged with defending America against the coronavirus gathered day after day in the White House Situation Room, consumed by crises. They grappled with how to evacuate the U.S. consulate in Wuhan, China, ban Chinese travelers and extract Americans from the Diamond Princess and other cruise ships.
“The members of the coronavirus task force typically devoted only five or 10 minutes, often at the end of contentious meetings, to talk about testing, several participants recalled. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, its leaders assured the others, had developed a diagnostic model that would be rolled out quickly as a first step.
“But as the deadly virus spread from China with ferocity across the U.S. between late January and early March, large-scale testing of people who might have been infected did not happen — because of technical flaws, regulatory hurdles, business-as-usual bureaucracies and lack of leadership at multiple levels, according to interviews with more than 50 current and former public health officials, administration officials, senior scientists and company executives.
“The result was a lost month, when the world’s richest country — armed with some of the most highly trained scientists and infectious disease specialists — squandered its best chance of containing the virus’s spread. Instead, Americans were left largely blind to the scale of a looming public health catastrophe.”
The report said:
“And Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top government scientist involved in the fight against the virus, told members of Congress that the early inability to test was ‘a failing’ of the administration’s response to a deadly, global pandemic. ‘Why,’ he asked later in a magazine interview, ‘were we not able to mobilize on a broader scale?’
“Across government, they said, three agencies responsible for detecting and combating threats like the coronavirus failed to prepare quickly enough. Even as scientists looked at China and sounded alarms, none of the agencies’ directors conveyed the urgency required to spur a no-holds-barred defense.”
CDC guidelines extended
U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he was extending the CDC guidelines for limiting social contact through April 30.
Doctors scramble in New Orleans
In the U.S., New Orleans doctors scramble as coronavirus deaths and cases soar. 151 people died of COVID-19 in Louisiana by late Sunday. The state has confirmed 3,540 cases since 9 March – among the world’s fastest-growing infection rates. Louisiana’s soaring infection rates mean some hospitals will have to start turning away patients in the next week.
U.S. will have millions of cases
The US government’s foremost infection disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, says the US will certainly have “millions of cases” of Covid-19 and more than 100,000 deaths.
As the US tops the world in reported infections from the new coronavirus, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases predicts 100,000-200,000 deaths from the outbreak in the US.
Dr Fauci was speaking to CNN’s State Of The Union as the federal government is discussing rolling back guidelines on social distancing in areas that have not been hard-hit by the outbreak.
Dr Fauci says he would only support the rollback in lesser-impacted areas if there is enhanced availability of testing in place to monitor those areas. He acknowledged, “it’s a little iffy there” right now.
Hoarding of ventilators in the U.S.
U.S. President Trump accused hospitals on Sunday of hoarding ventilators that are in scarce supply across the country as the coronavirus spreads, adding any hospitals not using the devices must release them.
Trump, whose critics have accused him of trying to deflect blame over his handling of the crisis, did not cite any evidence to back his accusation that hospitals were hoarding the devices. It was also unclear which medical facilities he was referring to. “We have some healthcare workers, some hospitals … hoarding equipment including ventilators,” Trump said at the White House following a meeting with corporate executives, including from U.S. Medical Group.
Trump downplaying virus cost American lives, says Pelosi
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on CNN Sunday morning that President Trump downplaying the virus cost American lives.
“His denial at the beginning was deadly,” said Pelosi on “State of the Union.” “His delaying of getting equipment – it continues — his delaying of getting equipment to where it is needed is deadly and now I think the best thing is to prevent more loss of life rather than open things up because we just don’t know. We have to have testing, testing, testing that is what we said from the start before we can evaluate the nature of it is in some of these other regions as well. I do not know what the purpose of that is. I do not know what the scientists are saying to him. When did the president know about this and what did he know? What did he know and when did he know it? That’s for an after-action review, but as the president fiddles, people are drying, and we just have to take every precaution.”
“Are you saying his downplaying ultimately cost American lives?” asked host Jake Tapper.
“Yes, I am. I’m saying that,” replied Pelosi. “The other day when he was signing the bill, he said ‘Just think 20 days ago everything was great.’ No, everything wasn’t great, we had nearly 500 cases and 17 deaths already and in that 20 days because we weren’t prepared we now have 2,000 deaths and 100,000 cases.”
While Trump has claimed recently he always took the virus seriously, he spent the end of January, all of February and early March downplaying the threat while the federal government was slow to mobilize a response.
Temporary hospital in Central Park in New York
A temporary hospital has been set up in Central Park in Manhattan, New York. The effort is being spearheaded by the global relief agency Samaritan’s Purse. The charity was working with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Mount Sinai, with the aim of receiving patients within two days.
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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