March 28, 2024

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COVID-19: Trump says 110,000 ventilators will be added in coming weeks

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday (Apr 8) that the federal government had 8,675 ventilators in a national stockpile available to states who need them while another 110,000 are to be delivered in coming weeks.

“I don’t think we’ll need them,” the president said, referring to the ventilators, in a White House briefing. 

READ: New York’s Cuomo sees COVID-19 crisis slowing despite record daily death toll

“But we’ll have them for the future and we’ll also be able to help other countries who are desperate for ventilators.”

The president also said that the United Kingdom has asked for 200 ventilators.

In the United States, COVID-19 has killed more than 10,000 people while more than 367,000 have fallen ill, according to a Reuters tally.

According to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday, the number of new COVID-19 hospitalisations appeared to be leveling off in the state. 

Both New York and the neighboring state of New Jersey reported their single-highest daily loss of life from COVID-19- a staggering 731 fatalities in Cuomo’s state alone.

New York’s cumulative death toll of 5,489 accounts for nearly half of about 12,500 coronavirus fatalities reported nationwide to date.

The spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York

A healthcare worker wearing a protective mask is seen outside at Mount Sinai Hospital during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York City, U.S., April 4, 2020. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

The United States has recorded more than 390,000 known infections, with well over a third of those in New York state alone.

But Cuomo said the rising tallies of deaths, while ominous, were a “lagging indicator” of case outcomes occurring days or weeks after the onset of infections.

He pointed to slowing rates of coronavirus hospitalisations, intensive care admissions and ventilator intubations as preliminary signs that social distancing measures imposed last month were working to blunt the outbreak.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, whose state saw coronavirus deaths jump by 232 in 24 hours to a total of 1,232, sounded a similar note of cautious optimism. He added: “We know we’re not out of the woods yet, we’re not close to that.”

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