US Reports One Fourth of Global COVID Cases

VOA News

Roughly 25 percent of the world’s 1.2 million COVID-19 cases have been reported in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins figures Sunday morning. 

New York is the U.S. state hardest hit by the coronavirus, where it has claimed more than 3,500 lives.  Public health experts say the situation is about to get worse, not only for New York, but for the rest of the United States as well.  

While New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state is about seven days away from its apex of the health crisis, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Saturday that the U.S. would soon face its hardest two weeks with the virus. 

“There’s going to be a lot of death,” Trump said.  

U.S. hospitals have been fighting the coronavirus battle with a woefully inadequate arsenal.  Hospitals have been pleading for ventilators for their patients and the protective gear that doctors and other medical workers wear to prevent passing the disease back and forth between themselves and their patients.  

The global tally of confirmed cases has climbed to more than 1.2 million and has claimed over 65,000 lives.  

Spain, which has reported the second highest number of cases, over 130,000, plans to extend its nationwide lockdown by 15 more days, until April 26. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Saturday he would ask parliament to extend lockdown measures for the second time after first extending them to April 11. 

But Sanchez noted that cases and death rates of the virus have been declining for the past week. 

«We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel,» he told the nation Saturday.   

Italy, which has recorded the highest death toll in the world from COVID-19, has seen more than 11,000 of its medical workers infected by the virus, according to its National Institutes of Health and an association of physicians. The groups said about 73 physicians have died from the virus. Infections among medical personnel amount to nearly 10% of all infections in Italy.  

Queen Elizabeth II was expected to deliver a rare address to Britain Sunday as the virus continues to spread. 

Britain’s Ministry of Justice said Saturday that thousands of prisoners would be released within weeks as part of its broader campaign to contain the spread of the virus. Britain reported 708 deaths overnight, boosting the country’s death toll to more than 4,300. 

France’s military has begun moving patients to hospitals across the country in an effort to contain the coronavirus’s spread in the hard-hit area in and around Paris. Military planes, helicopters and trains are transporting patients to less-affected areas in western France. More than 7,500 deaths and 90,000 infections have been reported in France. 

Seventeen medical workers at Egypt’s main cancer hospital have tested positive for the coronavirus and are now in quarantine, according to an Associated Press report.  Dr. Hatem Abu el-Kassem, the director of Cairo’s National Cancer Institute, told AP all the health workers at the facility will be tested for the virus. There are 1,070 confirmed cases of the virus in Egypt. 

China reported 30 new cases of the virus on Sunday, noting that 25 of them came from overseas. In past weeks, China had reported no new community infections, and has severely limited foreigners entering the country and flights landing from overseas in an effort to prevent another outbreak. 

The coronavirus first emerged late last year in China’s Hubei province, killing more than 3,300 people.