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U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday urged Michigan and Washington governors to step up measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak as the number of U.S. coronavirus infections climbed above 82,000, surpassing the national tallies of China and Italy.
New York, New Orleans and other hot spots faced a surge in hospitalizations and looming shortages of supplies, staff and sick beds.
With medical facilities running low on ventilators and protective masks and hampered by limited diagnostic testing capacity, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, rose beyond 1,200.
Speaking to Fox News late on Thursday, Trump said: "We have people like [Washington state] Governor [Jay] Inslee – he should be doing more."
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Briefing Room, March 26, 2020, in Washington. /AP
Earlier, the Associated Press reported that Inslee implored Trump on a private conference call with governors from both parties to use executive authority to ramp up production of necessary medical equipment.
Inslee also said he may extend a stay-at-home order tentatively set to expire April 6, encouraged by a "very modest improvement" in the Seattle area.
Trump also criticized Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, saying "she's not stepping up."
"I don't know if she knows what's going on but all she does is sit there and blame the federal government," Trump said. "She doesn't get it done and we send her a lot. Now she wants a declaration of emergency and we have to make a decision on that. But Michigan is a very important state."
The president also questioned the coronavirus scenario. "I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they're going to be," he said.
"I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators," Trump said, a reference to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's recent claim that the state needed 30,000 ventilators.
"You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes and they'll have two ventilators and now all of a sudden they're saying, 'Can we order 30,000 ventilators?'"
In this March 25, 2020 photo, medical personnel help each other at a federal COVID-19 drive-thru testing site in the parking lot of Walmart in North Lake, Ill. /AP
Cuomo told a news conference earlier that the state's projected shortfall in ventilators – machines that support the respiration of people have cannot breathe on their own – as "astronomical."
"It's not like they have them sitting in the warehouse," Cuomo said. "There is no stockpile available."
"Any scenario that is realistic will overwhelm the capacity of the healthcare system," he added.
In the interview, Trump also said he would not cancel the Republican National Convention in August in Charlotte, North Carolina, because of the coronavirus.
He said he believed the country will have rebounded from the coronavirus outbreak by then. "We're not going to cancel," Trump said. "I think we're going to be in great shape long before then."
Asked about the latest unemployment report released earlier and whether he expects a big drop of infections in the country, Trump said he expected a big drop of coronavirus cases like the situation in China and South Korea.
"It's a very bad situation and we haven't seen anything like it. But the end of the result is we got to get back to work. We can start by opening up certain parts of the country that aren't impacted by this. We have to open up, because people want to get back to work," he said.
"We have to get rid of this… and people want to go back to work."
Speaking to reporters at the White House earlier, Trump announced he will be traveling on Saturday to Virginia to send off a Navy hospital ship headed to the New York City Harbor to help hospitals deal with the crush of patients amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The president also approved disaster declarations to four states – Missouri, Maryland, Illinois and New Jersey.
(With input from Reuters)
(Cover: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Briefing Room, March 26, 2020, in Washington. /AP)
