Washington (dpa) – Because of the “flare” of the corona pandemic in the US state of Florida, President Donald Trump has canceled the Republican party conference planned there in late August. “The timing of the event is not right,” Trump said in the White House.
“I have to protect the American people.” There is nothing more important than the security of the Americans. Trump’s formal nomination for the presidential election on November 3 is now slated to take place in Charlotte, North Carolina. The framework in which he will deliver his nomination speech has not yet been decided.
With the cancellation of the major event planned in Florida, Trump made a U-turn. It was only in June that he announced the relocation of parts of the party convention originally planned in Charlotte with around 19,000 delegates. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper had said of the corona pandemic that such a major event would only be possible under conditions such as wearing masks and fewer participants.
“We had planned a huge deal,” said Trump. But he did not want to find himself in the situation in which he was accused of doing something unsafe. Rather, he wanted to be a “role model”.
Critics accuse the President of the opposite. Trump pushed early in the pandemic for the economy to reopen and to return to normal operations quickly. In June, after a break of several months against the advice of experts, he held an election campaign event in front of several thousand supporters in a closed hall.
Republican party leader Ronna McDaniel said on Monday that the president would speak to delegates at the convention. It was possible to reconcile health and the reopening of the economy – and that would be demonstrated at the party congress.
However, the corona situation in Florida has intensified considerably since mid-June. In the state with a good 21 million inhabitants, there are now around 400,000 known infections with the pathogen Sars-CoV-2. Jacksonville is one of the hardest hit areas.
In the United States, each of the 50 states decides separately which corona requirements apply, when, and when it’s time to relax. However, fully attended major events have been taboo almost everywhere.
The Democrats will also mostly hold their party conference planned for August to nominate their presidential candidate. Former Vice President Joe Biden should accept the nomination as a candidate but at the original venue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, it said. However, the delegates should not travel due to the corona pandemic.
The United States passed another dramatic milestone in the corona pandemic. In the meantime, more than four million infections with the pathogen Sars-CoV-2 have been detected in the country with around 330 million inhabitants. More than 144,000 people died from an infection, according to data from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. No other country in the world knows so many infections.
The US health agency CDC believes that there are a high number of unreported infections in many regions of the country. More than 15 million corona infections have been recorded worldwide. Around 626,000 people died in connection with Covid-19 disease.
The pandemic in the USA has recently worsened dramatically. The authorities reported between 60,000 and 77,000 new infections per day in the past two weeks. On Tuesday and Wednesday, more than 1,000 deaths were recorded within 24 hours.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 200724-99-905298 / 4
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