NEW YORK (Reuters) – More than 160,000 people died from COVID-19 in the United States, he showed a Reuters recount on Friday, as President Donald Trump said he would unilaterally grant monetary assistance to Americans after talks with Congressional Democrats failed.
The bleak milestone, which includes 10,000 deaths in the country over the past nine days, comes when Americans and their political leaders remain divided on issues such as reopening, testing, company closures, and mask requests.
“Elected leaders want to start addressing this crisis as a public aptitude that politics,” said Dr. Melanie Thompson, an internist in Atlanta.
“Federal and state governments subsidize access to immediate serial testing for schools and residences for all older adults. Congress will have to provide a monetary safety net for the most vulnerable, adding our essential workers,” Thompson said.
Trump said it would include an executive order that would postpone payroll taxes for all Americans until the end of this year and further expand unemployment benefits if the White House failed to reach an agreement on a contingency plan with the most sensible Democrats in Congress.
Trump, speaking at a news convention on his golf assets in Bedminster, New Jersey, made the promise after negotiations between the two broke down Friday.
Democrats said they had agreed to cut their proposal by $3.4 trillion, but Republicans wouldn’t settle for more than double their $1 trillion counteroffer.
COVID-19 infections are in 20 U.S. states, according to a Reuters analysis, as half of the epidemic moves from solar belt states like California, Florida, and Texas to the Midwest.
GRAPHIC: Tracking the new coronavirus in the U.S. Here
Around 100,000 more people were expected to flock to Sturgis, South Dakota this weekend for an annual 10-day motorcycle rally, raising considerations that the popular occasion could cause a new wave of disease.
Officials in the city of Anchorage, Alaska, won a court ruling Friday in favor of a ban on eating in closed places after suing a place to eat that challenged an emergency order prohibiting the practice.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker partially canceled plans to reopen the state’s economy, reducing the maximum allowed number of meetings from one hundred to 50.
The reopening of schools remains a divisive challenge for the country. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday that about 700 districts in the state could simply reopen classrooms, but suggested that they consult with teachers, academics, and parents.
“If you look at our infection rate, we’re probably on the most productive stage in the country right now,” Cuomo told reporters. “If we can open schools, we can open schools.”
In New York City, where 1.1 million young people attend the country’s largest public school system, Mayor Bill de Blasio said student attendance would be limited to one or three days a week.
Chicago Public Schools, the third largest school district in the country, reversed the course this week, saying academics would stay at a distance when the school year begins.
Some states, in addition to Florida and Iowa, require schools to offer at least one in-person learning, while governors of South Carolina and Missouri have the reopening of all classrooms.
Los Angeles, home to the country’s second-largest school district, said academics would remain in the house by the start of the new period.
Texas had first called for the reopening of schools, but has since allowed districts to apply for exemptions while the state deals with a growing burden of cases. The Houston Independent School District said the school year would begin nearly September 8, but would move to in-person learning on October 19.
GRAPHIC: where coronavirus is expanding in the U.S. here
Reporting through Aurora Ellis and Maria Caspani in New York; Additional information through Jonathan Allen in New York, Rich McKay in Atlanta, Yereth Rosen in Anchorage, Jeff Mason in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Written through Dan Whitcomb; Edited by Howard Goller, David Gregorio and Leslie Adler
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