Donald Trump has promised to deliver his roadmap for the gradual restart of the US economy, destroyed by the coronavirus, on Thursday and affirmed that the United States, the country most affected by the pandemic in the world, was seeing tangible signs of its slowing down.
Before him on Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also announced measures to ease the confinement to which the Germans are subject, like more than half of humanity.
“The battle continues but the data suggests that across the country, we have passed the peak of new cases,” the US president said during his daily press conference.
His country, however, recorded a new morbid record on Wednesday: 2,569 people died in 24 hours, the heaviest daily toll recorded by a country, according to the reference count of Johns Hopkins University.
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“Tomorrow will be a very big day”, had earlier launched the president from the gardens of the White House, promising for Thursday the details of this “reopening of the economy”.
“We are going to reopen states, some states much sooner than others. Some states may open before the May 1 deadline,” he said.
With nearly 17 million new unemployed in three weeks, the American economy sees accumulate the dizzying numbers and the announcements of companies revealing the extent of the disaster.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) compared the effects of this “Great Containment” to those of the Great Depression of 1929.
To help the poorest countries hit by the pandemic, the G20 leaders took on Wednesday the “historic” decision to suspend for one year the repayment of their debt.
The COVID-19 crisis, however, continues to mourn the planet, with more than 131,000 deaths. The United States pays the heaviest price, with more than 28,000 deaths for more than 637,000 cases.
But some countries, encouraged by auspicious signs, including the slowdown in intensive care admissions, have started to present their plans for deconfinement.
Berlin has announced the upcoming reopening of stores and, from May 4, schools and high schools. Large rallies will remain banned at least until August 31 because Germany’s “stage success” against the COVID-19 remains “fragile,” warned Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The G20’s decision to suspend the repayment of the debt of poor countries has reassured the defenders of multilateralism, a principle that they consider attacked by Donald Trump who decided to suspend the payment of the American contribution to the World Organization health (WHO).
Donald Trump accuses the organization of “mismanagement” of this pandemic that left China at the end of 2019 and of excessive alignment with Chinese positions.
“We regret the decision of the President of the United States,” WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reacted on Wednesday, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was “not the when to cut funding “from organizations fighting the pandemic.
