Officials warn that New York is experiencing a virus ’attack rate’ at five times that of other parts of the United States. President Trump downplays threat of the virus, as at least 20 states institute stay-at-home orders.
Public transit to start up again in Wuhan, where the global outbreak started, within 50 hours.
The Senate’s top Democrat and the treasury secretary said on Monday night they were close to a deal on a nearly $ 2 trillion economic stabilization package to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
The announcement came hours after Democrats voted for the second time to block action until they secured more worker protections and restrictions on bailed-out companies.
Mr. Mnuchin said the two sides were very close to a compromise, though both sides cautioned there was no final agreement and the negotiations remained fluid. The two men called President Trump just before they broke for the night.
Mr. Schumer said the president’s response had been “very positive,” despite a tweet just minutes before in which Mr. Trump accused Democrats, led by the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of sabotaging the package and wanting “the virus to win.”
The apparent progress came after Mr. Mnuchin and Mr. Schumer spent hours haggling behind closed doors. Among other areas of contention, Democrats had demanded restrictions and oversight requirements over a proposed $ 689 billion fund that would be used to bail out distressed companies.
Democrats voted against moving forward with the plan Monday afternoon, sending markets plummeting. But after more discussion, late Monday night Mr. Schumer said he was hopeful that both sides could now come together quickly, with a vote possible by Tuesday evening.
Public transit to start up again in Wuhan within hours as concerns simmer about “silent spreader” cases.
The central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the global outbreak started, said on Tuesday that public transportation would resume within 33 hours and residents would be allowed to leave the city beginning April 8 as infections appeared to be dwindling after a weekslong lockdown.
Even as local infections across China appeared to approach zero, the Wuhan government on Tuesday said a doctor who was working in a local hospital
In Wuhan, authorities continue to turn up cases of people with the virus but without symptoms, fueling growing fears among the Chinese public that the government has fa iled to disclose or discover a much larger number of infections than the 171, cases that have been reported.
In China , officials only count patients with both symptoms and a positive test in its official tally of confirmed cases. The World Health Organization says that all people who test positive are confirmed to be infected regardless of whether they show symptoms.
China’s approach to counting raises questions about how many people with the virus are circulating freel . Even if these individuals do not become sick themselves, there is evidence that asymptomatic people can infect others.
The number of “silent carriers” – people who are infected but show delayed or no symptoms – could be as high as one-third of those who test positive, the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, reported on Sunday, citing classified Chinese government data.
After social media accounts circulated over the weekend that China was suppressing the numbers by failing to acknowledge these “silent carriers,” authorities in Wuhan said a patient in the city had tested positive despite not having symptoms.
The Wuhan health commission also stated that infected patients with no symptoms still need to be isolated for 21 days and that “a small number may progress to confirmed cases.”
Last week, China reported no new local infections for the first time since the outbreak began three months ago. But it is now struggling with imported cases, which continue to rise.
But for many public health experts, these developments add to doubts that the virus will be fully eradicated in China in the near term .
Density creates alarming virus “attack rate” In New York City, officials say.
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New York City has about a third of the nation’s confirmed coronavirus cases, making it the new epicenter of the outbreak in the United States.
Nearly 1 in 1, people in the New York metropolitan area have contracted the virus, five times the rate of the rest of the country, Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said on Monday.
The New York metro area is experiencing a virus “attack rate” of nearly one in a thousand, or five times that of other areas Dr. Birx said. In epidemiology, the attack rate is the percentage of a population that has a disease.
New York’s population density may help explain why the “attack rate” is so high.
New York is far more crowded than any other major city in the United States. It has , 16 residents per square mile, while San Francisco, the next most jammed city, has , , according to
data from the US Census Bureau .
All of those people , in such a small space, appear to have helped the virus spread rapidly through packed subway trains, busy playgrounds and hivelike apartment buildings, forming ever-widening circles of infections. The city now has more coronavirus cases per capita than even Italy .
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York will issue an order requiring hospitals to increase capacity by at least 81 percent, he said on Monday. New York State saw a one-day increase of nearly 5, cases, putting the total at 25, as of Monday night.
After days of criticizing the Trump administration for not doing enough to help the city, Mr. de Blasio said he had a “very substantial conversation” with President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday night about getting additional supplies, medical personnel and financial support.
transcript
‘Our Country Wasn’t Built to Be Shut Down,’ Trump Says
The White House coronavirus task force provided an update as the virus spreads in America.
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