US: 139 COVID-19 deaths in 1 day, Trump signs executive order to prevent medical supplies hoarding

US president Donald Trump has signed an executive order to preventhoarding of vital medical supplies and personal protective equipment as thecountry for the first time registered over 130 deaths in a day due tocoronavirus.

Till Monday, more than 43,700 confirmed cases of coronavirus werereported in the United States. Of these, over 10,000 were added in one day,according to Worldometer, a website which compiles COVID-19 cases. With 139deaths, the number of fatalities crossed 550 by Monday night.

   

Signing the executive order, Trump said his government would take actionagainst hoarding and excessive pricing of vital medical and personal protectiveequipment as well as supplies such as hand sanitisers and face masks.

“Very simply, we will not allow anyone to exploit the suffering ofAmerican citizens for their own profit,” he asserted, adding theDepartment of Justice will aggressively prosecute fraudulent schemes related tothe pandemic.

New York State, in particular New York City, emerged as the hotspot ofone of the worst public health crisis in the United States in recent memory.Nearly one in every two Americans infected by novel coronavirus are from NewYork City which reported 5,085 news cases on Monday taking the total to 20,875.

As many as 157 residents of New York, a city which has one of thehighest concentration of people in the country, have died of coronavirus sofar. Of the total deaths in the city so far, 43 were reported on Monday.

Health officials warned that COVID-19-related casualty figures in NewYork are expected to jump significantly in the coming days.

White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Deborah L Birx toldreporters that New York City, the New York Metro area of New Jersey and partsof Long Island have an attack rate close to one in 1,000. This is five times ofwhat the other areas are seeing.

“Through high throughput lab investigations we are finding that 28per cent of the submitted specimens are from that area, whereas it is less than8 per cent in the rest of the country,” she said.

“So to all of my friends and colleagues in New York, this is thegroup that needs to absolutely social distance and self-isolate at this time.Clearly, the virus has been circulating there for a number of weeks to havethis level of penetrance into the general community,” Birx said.

President Trump told reporters at a White House news conference that New York along with otherhotspots such as Washington State and California is the top priority for hisadministration.

“Essential medical supplies and emergency equipment are being rushedto New York.” he said, adding the Federal Emergency Management Agency isdistributing eight million N-95 respirator masks and 13.3 million surgicalmasks across the country right now.

“Focusing on the areas with the greatest need, we have shipped 73pallets of personal protective equipment to New York City and 36 pallets to theState of Washington. In the past 96 hours, FEMA has also received donations ofapproximately 6.5 million masks. We are focused on some of the hotspots,”Trump said.

He also announced that clinical trials for existing drugs that may proveeffective against the virus will begin in New York.

“The federal government is working to help obtain large quantitiesof chloroquine. It will be a big game-changer. So, we will see distribution startingtomorrow (Tuesday) early morning in New York. I think a lot of people are goingto be hopefully very happy with the results. We all will be watching itclosely,” Trump told reporters.

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