US eyes new outbreaks as infections worldwide top 590,000
Kevin McGILL | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 7 months AGO
Media stand in front of the Eiffel Tower where the word "Merci", the French word for 'Thank you", is emblazoned as France's coronavirus death toll continued to climb, in Paris, Friday, March 27, 2020. Health workers fighting to save lives in France from COVID-19 have received a huge show of gratitude, from the Eiffel Tower. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
An elderly woman stands in a window in a poor area of Bucharest, Romania, Friday, March 27, 2020 as authorities try to limit the spread of the new coronavirus, one of the measures being forbidding people over 65 years of age to leave their homes, except for a two hour interval. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A medical worker looks out onto a line of patients waiting for COVID-19 testing outside Elmhurst Hospital Center, Friday, March 27, 2020, in New York. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Relatives wearing face masks to protect against coronavirus, observe social distancing guidelines during a burial at a Madrid cemetery during the coronavirus outbreak in Madrid, Spain, Friday, March 27, 2020. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
In this photograph taken from behind a window medical personnel work in the intensive care ward for Covid-19 patients at the MontLegia CHC hospital in Liege, Belgium, Friday, March 27, 2020. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A resident looks out from his home during a stay-at-home order across the country to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, at La Chacra neighborhood in Guatemala City, Friday, March 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Jackson Square, normally bustling with tourists, is seen deserted in the French Quarter of New Orleans, due to the new coronavirus pandemic, Friday, March 27, 2020. While rich in history and culture, New Orleans is economically poor, and the people here are not necessarily well-positioned to weather this latest storm. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
An elderly COVID-19 patient is transferred to an ambulance from a Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, March 27, 2020. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
A woman pushes a baby in a stroller under a canopy of cherry blossoms in the Kenwood neighborhood of Bethesda, Md., Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Kenwood may be a stand-in for some for Washington, DC's National Cherry Blossom Festival that has been canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak. In the early 1930s and 1940s, cherry trees were planted to promote the neighborhood to potential home buyers. Now, over 1,200 cherry trees grace the neighborhood and bloom during the spring season. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
A municipal worker sprays disinfectant as a precaution against the coronavirus outbreak, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, March 27, 2020. The virus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
An Alberta Health Services employee speaks with a motorist at a drive-thru coronavirus testing facility in Calgary, Alberta, Friday, March 27, 2020. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP)
Pope Francis delivers the Urbi and Orbi prayer (Latin for To the City and To the World) in an empty St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Friday, March 27, 2020. Praying in a desolately empty St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis on Friday likened the coronavirus pandemic to a storm laying bare illusions that people can be self-sufficient and instead finds "all of us fragile and disoriented" and needing each other's help and comfort. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can c…
Medical staff members arrive for a duty shift at Dongsan Hospital in Daegu, South Korea, Friday, March 27, 2020. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.(Lee Yong-hwan/Newsis via AP)
Workers, wearing personal protective equipment, build splash guards during a mass manufacturing operation to supply New York City government with protection to distribute against COVID-19, Friday, March 27, 2020, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Coffins arriving from the Bergamo area, where the coronavirus infections caused many victims, are being unloaded from a military truck that transported them in the cemetery of Cinisello Balsamo, near Milan in Northern Italy, Friday, March 27, 2020. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)
A man wearing a mask bicycles along a section of the Grand Concourse that has been temporarily closed to vehicular traffic as the city tests out a pilot program providing more social distancing space during the coronavirus pandemic, Friday, March 27, 2020 in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans rushed to build a makeshift hospital in its convention center Friday as troubling new outbreaks bubbled in the United States, deaths surged in Italy and Spain and the world warily trudged through the pandemic that has sickened more than a half-million people.
In a reminder no one is immune to the new coronavirus, it pierced even the highest echelons of global power as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the first leader of a major country to test positive.
As the death toll continued to climb in France, health workers there received a huge show of gratitude — from the Eiffel Tower. “Merci,” French for ‘Thank you,” and “Stay at home” in English were emblazoned in lights at night on Paris’ world-famous landmark.
The escalation of cases worldwide came as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared a new rapid test from Abbott Laboratories, which the company says can detect the coronavirus in about 5 minutes. Medical device maker Abbott announced the emergency clearance of its cartridge-based test Friday night, saying the test delivers a negative result in 13 minutes when the virus is not detected.
While New York remained the worst hit city in the U.S., Americans braced for worsening conditions elsewhere, with worrisome infection numbers being reported in New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit.
“We are not through this. We’re not even halfway through this,” said Joseph Kanter of the Louisiana Department of Health, which has recorded more than 2,700 cases, more than five times what it had a week ago. The United States became the first country to surpass 100,000 infections on Friday, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
New Orleans’ sprawling Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, along the Mississippi River, was being converted into a massive hospital as officials prepared for thousands more patients than they could accommodate. The preparations immediately conjured images of another disaster, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the convention center became a squalid shelter of last resort in a city that has braved a string of storm hits, not to mention great fires and a yellow fever epidemic in centuries past.
As the new health crisis loomed, economic catastrophe had already arrived in the city, where many already live in poverty and the tourism industry has screeched to a halt.
“I’ve never been unemployed. But now, all of a sudden: Wop!” said John Moore, the musician best known as Deacon John, who has no gigs to perform with much of the city shut down. “It ain’t just me. It’s everybody.”
In New York, where there are more than 44,000 cases statewide, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 passed 6,000 on Friday, double what it had been three days earlier.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for 4,000 more temporary beds across New York City, where the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center has already been converted into a hospital.
“This is going to be weeks and weeks and weeks,” Cuomo told members of the National Guard working at the Javits Center. “This is going to be a long day, and it's going to be a hard day, and it's going to be an ugly day, and it's going to be a sad day.”
President Donald Trump, after earlier rejecting Cuomo's pleas for tens of thousands more ventilators, and the governor's calls to use the Korean War-era Defense Production Act, invoked the law Friday, ordering General Motors to begin manufacturing the breathing machines.
Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package, after the House approved the sweeping measure by voice vote. Lawmakers in both parties lined up behind the law to send checks to millions of Americans, boost unemployment benefits, help businesses and toss a life preserver to an overwhelmed health care system.
More than 595,000 people have contracted the virus around the world and about 27,000 have died. While the U.S. now leads the world in reported infections, five countries exceed its roughly 1,700 deaths: Italy, Spain, China, Iran and France.
Dr. John Brooks of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Americans remained “in the acceleration phase” of the pandemic and that all corners of the country were at risk.
"There is no geographic part of the United States that is spared from this," he said.
In a phone call Friday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping told Trump that China "stands ready to provide support within its capacity," the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Trump, who has repeatedly referred to the outbreak as a “Chinese virus,” struck a different tone Friday, tweeting after the call that “China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus. We are working closely together. Much respect!”
In Europe, Italy recorded its single biggest 24-hour rise in deaths, with 969 more victims, to bring its total number of fatalities to 9,134. The country now has more than 86,000 cases, surpassing China to record the grim distinction of the second-most infections in the world, behind the U.S.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella called it “a sad page in our history.”
Italian epidemiologists warn that the country's number of cases is likely much higher than reported — perhaps by five times — although two weeks into a nationwide lockdown the daily increase seems to be slowing, at least in northern Italy.
‘’It is something devastating,’’ said the Rev. Mario Carminati, whose church in the tiny Lombardy town of Seriate has been used to hold coffins of the dead before they are taken by military convoy for cremation.
Spain, with the world's fourth-biggest number of cases, reported another 7,800 infections for a total of more than 64,000. The country said health workers accounted for about 15 percent of its cases.
Deaths in Spain climbed past 4,900 — the world's second-highest total after Italy.
In Britain, Johnson's office said the prime minister was tested after showing mild symptoms for the coronavirus. He was self-isolating and continuing to lead Britain's response to the pandemic.
“Be in no doubt that I can continue, thanks to the wizardry of modern technology, to communicate with all my top team, to lead the national fightback against coronavirus," Johnson said in a video message, adding that he had a temperature and persistent cough.
Several weeks ago, Johnson had pledged he would "go on shaking hands with everybody.”
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has been at the forefront of the nation’s virus response, also was confirmed to be infected. Prince Charles previously said he tested positive.
Around the world, the pandemic threatened people living in places with little means to respond.
India launched a massive program to feed hungry day laborers after a lockdown of the country's 1.3 billion people put them out of work. Iran’s military hurriedly finished a 2,000-bed field hospital to accommodate the worst outbreak in the Mideast. In Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, South Africa and elsewhere, the count of the infected passed 1,000 people and worries persisted that it would only get worse.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.
Johns Hopkins reported more than 130,000 people have recovered, about half in China.
Stocks skidded in Europe and on Wall Street, where major indexes closed down about 3%, giving up some of the gains the market had piled up over the previous three days.
The head of the International Monetary Fund said it was clear that the global economy has now entered a recession that could be as bad or worse than the 2009 downturn.
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Sedensky reported from Philadelphia and Rising reported from Berlin. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed.
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Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
ARTICLES BY MATT SEDENSKY
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