- Head's hundred seals Australia win over England in 1st ODI after Labuschagne strikes
- Dream debut for Wirtz as Leverkusen thump dire Feyenoord
- Myanmar flood death toll climbs to 293: state media
- Israel army says West Bank air strike kills 4 militants
- LIV golfers get green light for US Ryder Cup team, PGA Championship
- US accuses social media giants of 'vast surveillance'
- Ten Hag to bed Hojlund, Mount in carefully when they return for Man Utd
- Breaking bad as McIlroy endures 'weird' day
- EU chief announces $11 bn for nations hit by 'heartbreaking' floods
- Spanish PM, Palestinian leader urge Mideast de-escalation
- New study reinforces theory Covid emerged at Chinese market
- World Bank boosts climate financing by 10 percent
- Bagnaia eyeing summit on home ground in 100th MotoGP
- 'Something was wrong', defendant in French mass rape tells court
- Hezbollah chief admits 'unprecedented' blow in device blasts
- Sales of US existing homes slip slightly in August
- Fear, panic haunt Lebanese after devices explode
- Labuschagne sparks Australia fightback in England ODI opener
- S.Africa's HIV research power couple says fight goes on
- Why is Israel focusing on border with Lebanon?
- Mpox vaccines administered in Rwanda, first in Africa
- US Fed rate cut is 'very positive sign' for economy: Yellen
- Unknown Mozart string trio discovered in Germany
- 'Are we five-year-olds?' F1 drivers won't mind their language
- Brazil judge orders X to reimpose block or face hefty fine
- Munich to rename stadium street after Beckenbauer
- Champions Italy to face Argentina in Davis Cup Final 8
- The winding, fitful path to weight loss drug Ozempic
- Italians defeat American Magic to reach Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Norris has 'nothing to lose' as he hunts Verstappen in Singapore
- Kyiv 'outraged' at Swiss showing of Russian war film
- French city renames Abbe Pierre square after abuse claims
- Footballer charged after huge cannabis seizure at UK airport
- Vatican recognises Medjugorje shrine, but not Virgin's messages
- Israel bombs Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon after wave of deadly blasts
- Bank of England freezes rate after jumbo US cut
- Playing Nadal is 'kind of a nightmare', says Alcaraz
- Portugal tackles last of deadly northern forest fires
- Ton-up Ashwin lifts India to 339-6 against Bangladesh
- Departing NATO chief warns US against 'isolationism'
- Coming winter 'sternest test yet' for Ukraine energy grid
- Evacuations as tail of Storm Boris floods northeast Italy
- Lebanon's Hezbollah reeling after second wave of deadly blasts
- Taiwan recognises same-sex marriages between Chinese, Taiwanese
- Stock markets rally after jumbo US rate cut
- Gabon's ousted leader Bongo says renouncing politics for good
- Lebanon device blasts: what we know about deadly attacks
- Equity markets rally after jumbo US rate cut
- Late Harrods owner Al-Fayed accused of rape: BBC
- Hong Kong man sentenced 14 months for wearing 'seditious' T-shirt
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
RYCEF | 5.76% | 6.95 | $ | |
JRI | -0.3% | 13.4 | $ | |
CMSC | -0.06% | 25.04 | $ | |
NGG | -1.68% | 68.89 | $ | |
RIO | 3.25% | 65.02 | $ | |
BCE | -1.04% | 35.245 | $ | |
SCS | -6.41% | 13.26 | $ | |
BCC | 4.59% | 143.65 | $ | |
CMSD | 0.13% | 25.012 | $ | |
RELX | 1.63% | 48.155 | $ | |
GSK | -1.29% | 41.89 | $ | |
VOD | -1.54% | 10.075 | $ | |
BTI | -0.77% | 37.59 | $ | |
AZN | 0.71% | 79.145 | $ | |
BP | 1.44% | 32.905 | $ |
US mourns one million dead from Covid-19
The United States has crossed the threshold of one million deaths from Covid-19, the White House said on Thursday, as the nation seeks to turn the page on the pandemic despite threats of another surge.
"Today, we mark a tragic milestone," President Joe Biden said in a statement that acknowledged the "unrelenting" pain of bereaved families, and urged Americans to remain vigilant as cases tick back up.
"One million empty chairs around the dinner table," Biden said. "Each an irreplaceable loss. Each leaving behind a family, a community, and a nation forever changed."
Biden's announcement came as he chaired a global virtual Covid summit, taking place as Europe also passed two million Covid deaths, focused on efforts to bring the pandemic under control worldwide and prepare for future health emergencies.
The US leader came to the summit hobbled by Congress' failure to approve $22.5 billion in continued emergency Covid funding, including for the international supply of vaccines, and he warned it was "critical" for lawmakers to keep financing testing, vaccines and treatments.
America recorded its first Covid-19 death, on the West Coast, in early February 2020. By the next month, the virus was ravaging New York and the White House was predicting up to 240,000 deaths nationwide.
But those projections were way off.
Even in New York -- the hard-hit early epicenter of America's Covid crisis -- the million death milestone was difficult to comprehend.
"It's unfathomable," Diana Berrent, one of the first people in New York state to catch Covid-19, said of the toll that far exceeds epidemiologists' worst predictions.
Back in spring 2020, New York City hospitals and morgues overflowed, and the sound of ambulance sirens rang down empty streets as then-president Donald Trump responded chaotically in Washington.
Two years on, and life in the Big Apple is largely back to normal as residents attempt to put the collective trauma of the virus that has killed 40,000 New Yorkers behind them.
Broadway stage lights are once again illuminated, yellow taxis clog main avenues and bars in business districts hum with post-work chatter.
"Without a doubt you feel the energy of the people that are on the streets. It's been a long time coming," Alfred Cerullo, president of a business improvement group in Midtown Manhattan, told AFP.
New York's rebound has been aided by its high inoculation numbers -- about 88 percent of adults are fully vaccinated, a rate that was boosted by mandates, including for indoor activities like dining.
Jeffrey Bank, owner of Carmine's restaurant near Times Square, says sales at the Italian eatery are better than they were in 2019, as residents and tourists make up for lost time.
"People have been sitting at home for two years. They want to celebrate and they're entitled to," he told AFP.
- 'Disconnect' -
But the city has a long way to go. Many stores remain empty and only 38 percent of Manhattan workers are in the office on an average weekday, according to Kastle Systems, a security firm that tracks building occupancy.
The Big Apple's tourism board also doesn't expect visitor numbers to get back to the 67 million of 2019 people for a few years, and business owners fear another wave of infections.
In recent weeks, the United States has seen an uptick in the number of daily virus cases, largely due to the new Omicron subvariant.
The rise has coincided with the lifting of mask mandates.
"I think we are in a place where psychologically and socially and economically, people are largely done with the pandemic," said Celine Gounder, an infectious disease expert at New York University.
"(But) the pandemic is not over. So you have a disconnect between what is happening epidemiologically and what's happening in terms of how people are responding," she told AFP.
Among the most at-risk are the unvaccinated, lower-income populations, uninsured people and communities of color, she says.
- Mandates -
Ideological clashes over curfews and mask and vaccine mandates characterized America's early pandemic response, as it racked up the world's highest death toll, with hospitals overwhelmed and morgues failing to keep up with the dead.
Trump was late to back social distancing, repeatedly undermined top scientist Anthony Fauci, peddled unproven medical treatments, and politicized mask-wearing -- before eventually being hospitalized with the virus himself.
Trump did pump billions of dollars into vaccine research and by mid-December 2020, the first vaccines were available for health care workers.
But deaths kept soaring amid a slow take-up of shots in conservative areas of the country.
New president Biden and many Democratic governors enforced mandates but Republican-led states like Florida and Texas outright banned them, highlighting America's patchwork of rules that made forming a unified response to the pandemic difficult.
pdh-ia-nr-bfm/ec
P.Stevenson--AMWN