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Coronavirus live news: rise in Italy, US and France deaths takes global confirmed toll past 40,000 Coronavirus live news: rise in Italy, US and France deaths takes global confirmed toll past 40,000
(32 minutes later)
Worldwide confirmed cases pass 800,000 as Spain and Russia report also record single-day death tolls and Mexico wakes to state of emergencyWorldwide confirmed cases pass 800,000 as Spain and Russia report also record single-day death tolls and Mexico wakes to state of emergency
Asked whether he lulled people into a false sense of security Trump responds, “It’s going to go away, hopefully at the end of the month.”
Asked about homelessness in California, Trump takes the opportunity for a swipe against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “I’m not sure if she cares, she has it at a very high level in her district,” he says.
“Who would ever think you’d need 16,000 ventilators?” Trump asks.
He also, despite repeatedly criticising New York’s response, says he has a good relationship with the state. “We’re dealing with New York,” he says.
A reminder we’re with US president Donald Trump’s White House press briefing now, following the prediction that US deaths could reach 240,000.
The toll will be between 100,000 and that number, according to White House modelling.
Trump has called 100,000 a very low number. That figure was presented as a “goal” on a graph displayed by the coronavirus task force.
You can tune in live here:
“Do you ever run out of questions, you people?” Trump asks a room full of reporters.
Trump is talking about the impeachment. “They probably illegally impeached me... you don’t hear much about that nowadays because everyone’s talking about the virus,” which he is happy about, the US president says.
“The democrats their whole live their whole being their whole existence was to try and get me out of office any way they can even if it was a phony deal.”
Fact check: Hydroxychloroquine cure
Trump once again touted hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus cure, asserting that it won’t kill people because it has already been to treat other conditions. But the drug can have serious side effects even when it is used as recommended, to treat malaria, as well as lupus and arthritis.
Moreover, public health experts including his own top infectious diseases adviser, Dr. Fauci, have previously warned that there was only “anecdotal evidence” that the drugs could be helpful. My colleague Oliver Milman reported that a French study of 40 coronavirus patients found that half experienced clearing of their airways after being given hydroxychloroquine. Experts have warned that the study is small and lacks sufficient rigor to be classed as evidence of a potential treatment. The French health ministry has warned against the use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19.
The surge in demand for the unproven hydroxychloroquine also risks shortages of the drug for those who need it most. It is used to help patients manage the chronic autoimmune disease lupus, but some are already complaining the drug is harder to come by. Trump’s pushing of the treatment has reportedly caused stockpiling of hydroxychloroquine.
Trump says: “I do think we were very early but we also were very smart. Because we had never done that before we had never closed our borders before... we also stopped Europe very shortly after... I stopped them a long time before anyone started stopping people anywhere.”
If we had had adequate testing would we have known? the reporter asks.
Pence says Trump’s initial efforts were designed to prevent the virus from entering the US and that they have been told that bought the country significant time.
“If I can also say to every American all the questions about resources are very important,” and that the president is working very hard to address the issue of resources.
He says if Americans can practice social distancing and other measures for 30 days it will make a significant different to the crisis.
Dr. Birx is speaking now.Dr. Birx is speaking now.
She says that it’s not possible to answer the reporter’s question until antibody testing is possible.She says that it’s not possible to answer the reporter’s question until antibody testing is possible.
“We need to see was the virus circling in February, in early March.”“We need to see was the virus circling in February, in early March.”
She says her and Dr. Fauci is focussed on getting testing to determine that.She says her and Dr. Fauci is focussed on getting testing to determine that.
“If there was no virus in the background there was nothing to mitigate,” Dr. Fauci jumps in to say.“If there was no virus in the background there was nothing to mitigate,” Dr. Fauci jumps in to say.
The presser is live here, by the way:
Trump is being asked whether, if the US had started social distancing and other measures earlier, would the modelling be different.
Trump says he had a decision to make early on, because “thousands and thousands” of infected people were coming to the US. He decided against the wishes of many to stop that, Trump says.
Now he is laying into New York again.
“New York started late the others didn’t start so late.”
As the White House predicts that between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans will die from coronavirus, Trump is arguing that he is saving the country from a much worse fate.
He says 100,000 is in fact a very low number, according to modelling.
Helen Sullivan with you now, taking over from my colleague Damien Gayle. You can contact me directly on Twitter with questions or news @helenrsullivan.
We’re staying with US president Donald Trump’s White House briefing for now, as the numbers being given for the predicted deaths in the country, which currently accounts for 1 in 5 cases worldwide, are pretty shocking – not only that, but the way they are being presented is insensitive, to say the least:
US president Donald Trump said a few minutes ago, addressing the media, that the country is “going to go through a very tough two weeks,” striking a more somber tone than he has at previous briefings. “This is going to be a very, very painful two weeks.”
There will be“light at the end of the tunnel,” he added. We are going to see things get better “all of a sudden” like a “burst of light.”
White House predicts up to 240,000 deaths
The White House has predicted 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the US from coronavirus pandemic, even with mitigation measures. This isn’t the first time that the task force scientists have presented these grim projections.
But Birx said the model doesn’t assume every American does everything they’re supposed to do, “so it can be lower than that,” she said.
“Our hope is to get that down as much as we can,” Fauci added. The numbers are what “we need to anticipate, but that doesn’t mean that that’s what we’re going to accept.”
Ethiopia’s election, set for August, has been postponed as the national election board said Tuesday the coronavirus makes it impossible to prepare.
The vote has been highly anticipated in a country that has seen sweeping political reforms in the past two years but a surge of violence as some people use the new freedoms to settle old scores. Both the government and opposition camps have expressed support for the election board’s decision. With the government’s mandate expiring in a few months, lawmakers are expected to vote to extend it. This is the first major election in Africa to be postponed because of the coronavirus. Several African countries have upcoming presidential votes this year, including Burundi and Tanzania.
The pandemic is a preview of the types of global health threats that will emerge as the planet becomes hotter, and how it is tackled has implications for dealing with climate threats as well, health experts have warned.
Mandeep Dhaliwal, the director for HIV, health and development for the UN development programme, has said:
According to a report from the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Dr David Nabarro, a special envoy to the World Health Organization (WHO) on the pandemic, added that about a third of the world’s countries are on lockdown.
That is forcing leaders into “awful political tradeoffs” between protecting lives and keeping economies functioning – the kind of tradeoffs that could become more frequent as climate-linked disasters from wildfires to drought worsen.
The actor, Idris Elba, has said he is not showing symptoms for Covid-19 after testing positive for the virus, as he shared a message of encouragement with fans. Earlier this month, he said he would be self-isolating with his wife Sabrina Dhowre after doctors told him he had been infected.
The former Marseille president Pape Diouf has died, the French league (LFP) has announced. The club had earlier revealed he had been suffering from Covid-19. Diouf was being treated in a hospital in Senegal after contracting the virus.
Diouf became the first black president of a first-tier European club when he took the position at Marseille in 2005.