In the worsening coronavirus crisis, Donald Trump does not want to impose a quarantine on New York, New Jersey and Connecticut for the time being. That will not be necessary, tweeted the US president. On the recommendation of his coronavirus working group and after consulting with the governors of the three affected states, he asked the CDC to publish “strong travel advice”.
New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut residents are now encouraged to refrain from unnecessary domestic travel for the next 14 days. This does not apply to employees in, for example, healthcare, financial services or the food industry. The authority did not issue a general travel warning or restrictions for domestic travel. However, travelers are encouraged to take precautions to avoid becoming infected or contributing to the further spread of the virus.
Every third victim comes from New York
“Some people would like to see New York quarantined because it is a hotspot,” Trump said a few hours earlier in the garden of the White House. Many New Yorkers would be traveling to Florida right now. “We don’t want that.” Perhaps “New York, New Jersey, maybe one or two other places and certain parts of Connecticut” should therefore be cordoned off. More than 30 million people live in the three states.
A makeshift hospital in the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York
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The US east coast state of New York, along with New York City, has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. On Saturday, the number of detected infections in the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut combined rose to more than 62,000 – that’s more than half of all cases in the United States. In New York in particular, however, significantly more tests are carried out than in other parts of the country.
The Johns Hopkins University has so far counted around 121,000 demonstrably infected people in the USA, and more than 2000 people have died from the virus. According to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, more than 700 of them came from his state.
Andrew Cuomo, the governor and crisis manager of New York
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“I think it’s illegal”
Cuomo, who had previously met with Trump, was unaware of any quarantine plans. That was not an issue in the conversation. “I don’t even know what that means,” but he doesn’t like it, the governor told the press. Such measures would certainly lead to chaos and the economy would not recover for months or years. “I don’t know how that should be legally enforceable. And I don’t know what it would do from a medical point of view,” said Andrew Cuomo. “I think it’s illegal.”
With a population of over eight million, New York City is the largest US city and one of the world’s cultural and economic centers.
“Message of Hope and Solidarity”
The US president had downplayed the scope of the virus until a month ago. Trump is now being accused of reacting too hesitantly to the crisis and that the pandemic subsequently caught the country cold. Experts expect the situation in the US to worsen before any calm can be expected. Governor Cuomo expects the peak of the wave of infections for his state of New York in two to three weeks.
The hospital ship Comfort on the way to New York
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Trump passed the hospital ship “Comfort” in Norfolk on Saturday, which is supposed to relieve New York hospitals and arrive there on Monday. The ship with its 1000 beds should send a “message of hope and solidarity,” he said.
In New York, local authorities had repeatedly warned that the capacities of the hospitals there were not even remotely prepared for the contagion of large parts of the population. The government expects the state to need 30,000 ventilators. Right now there are only about 11,000.
rb / cw (afp, ap, dpa, rtr)
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