Surging COVID-19 cases shows Americans not following social distancing

April 03, 2020 10:00

The surge in number of the coronavirus cases in the United States reveals that Americans are not following the Trump administration's social distancing guidelines, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Deborah Birx said on Friday.

"I can tell by the curve that not every American is following it (social distance guidelines)," Birx said during the White House's daily coronavirus briefing.

According to Johns Hopkins University, the country is now leading the world with more than 2,42,000 confirmed cases and 5,850 deaths. Nearly 30,000 new cases were registered within the last 24 hours.

"When the president (Donald Trump) put out guidelines 16 days ago, that was serious. And you can see what happened subsequently. And you can see the number of individuals affected since then. The people we are seeing affected today - and in hospitals today - were infected after the guidelines went out," said Brix.

She further said that the upward trajectory in the US has compelled Trump to extend the social distancing guidelines for 30 days.At the Coronavirus taskforce briefing, White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro said that Trump administration will soon issue an order to crack down on the sale of COVID-19-related medical supplies in the black market, which has been driving the cost up for supplies. -- PTI

« Back to LIVE

TOP STORIES

Kejriwal's aide Bibhav Kumar arrested in Swati Maliwal 'assault' case

Bibhav Kumar was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Gaurav Goyal who sent him to five-day police custody after the police sought his remand to question him about the incident and to retrieve data from his phone.

Back to back terror attacks in J-K: Ex-sarpanch killed, tourist couple shot at

Terrorists struck at two places in Kashmir on Saturday night, killing a former sarpanch in Shopian and injuring a tourist couple from Rajasthan in Anantnag, two days ahead of Lok Sabha elections in Baramulla.

I dedicate my man of the match award to Dayal: Faf du Plessis

Pacer Yash Dayal kept his cool in a tense final over to seal a 27-run win against Chennai Super Kings and send RCB through to the play-offs.

IPL PIX: Spirited RCB knock out CSK; qualify for play-offs!

A spirited performance from their bowlers saw Royal Challengers Bengaluru outclass Chennai Super Kings by 27 runs to qualify for the play-offs.

Banking industry doyen N Vaghul dies at 88

Veteran banker N Vaghul, who led the transformation of ICICI into a private sector lender, died on Saturday afternoon due to health complications. He was 88. Vaghul took over the reins of ICICI, then a public finance institution, in...