NEW YORK, May 12, 2022 (AFP) – The United States has passed the one million mark of deaths from Covid-19, the White House announced on Thursday (12), New York-led country with the most affected city. Wanted to turn the page by the coronavirus in 2020, despite a slight increase in cases since last month.
“Today we have reached a tragic milestone: one million Americans died of COVID-19,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.
“We must remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as we can with more testing, vaccines and treatments than ever before,” Biden said.
After several months in the world’s most bereaved country (after Brazil, India and Russia), the United States has recorded a daily increase in cases for a month.
The discharge occurs in a context in which the mask is no longer mandatory, although its use indoors is recommended, and the fourth dose of the vaccine is only available to people over the age of 50.
The increase in cases is due to subtypes of Omicron, which are more transmitted than previous strains, although the effects seem to be less severe in a country where 66% of the population is vaccinated. In people over 65 years of age this index reaches 90%.
After two years of pandemic and several waves of coronavirus, the country is looking to turn the page on the disease.
– The nation’s economic and cultural capital and a great mosaic of communities and social classes, NY has regained its famed luster in New York.
New Yorkers, domestic and foreign tourists return to Broadway theaters, photograph themselves near advertising screens in Times Square, visit the Statue of Liberty, take a car ride through Central Park or walk or cycle the Brooklyn Bridge cross over.
Famous museums in northern Manhattan were crowded once again and the elevators to the skyscraper observation deck, which offer unparalleled views of the Big Apple and its surroundings, register a rapid pace.
Attractions in the city with a population of 8.4 million began to gradually reopen in 2021, leading to traffic jams on main roads again.
Queues are seen in front of thousands of restaurants, bars and ‘food trucks’ in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
“We’ve been waiting a long time to come back to New York,” said Alfred Cerullo, who led a lobby to encourage business in Manhattan. “No doubt you can feel the energy of the people on the streets again,” he said.
– The Nightmare of 2020 – The contrast of 2020 is striking. The epicenter of the pandemic, “the city that never sleeps” was empty for weeks, like in a science fiction movie.
The sound of ambulance sirens dominated the city along the great streets of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, overcrowding hospitals and forcing morgues to store victims’ bodies in refrigerated trucks.
Janice Maloof-Tomaso, a nurse working in Boston at the time, recalls that many health professionals “couldn’t tolerate so many deaths …
Nearly 40,000 New Yorkers have died from Covid-19 since 2020. Residents of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens are not forgetting the pandemic.
Thousands of small businesses closed their doors without customers for months. The windows are still covered by real estate signs or posters with the message “For Rent”.
– “Anxious” businessman -Frank Tedesco owns a jewelry store in the North Bronx neighborhood of Westchester.
He explained to AFP that he managed to save the business in 2020 thanks to public aid and his own savings, but he is “very worried” because he doesn’t know what will happen and that he is likely to have another economic “due to a possible cause”. How to cope with the effect”. The return of the pandemic.
Hurt by the nightmare of 2020, New Yorkers remain vigilant. The façade, which is still seen on the streets and indoors, is mandatory on transport and in many places, such as the Metropolitan Opera House or theatres.
And it looks like telecommuting is here to stay: A weekly survey by security company Kustle shows that the occupancy rate of offices in New York reaches 38%.
David Solomon, president of business bank Goldman Sachs, admitted on May 2 that the rate of return on face-to-face work is 50-60%, up from 80% before Covid.
Since the start of the pandemic, the number of member countries compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded a total of 5.4 million deaths from COVID-19 in the two years.
But the WHO said last week that between January 2020 and December 2021 there were 13 to 17 million deaths worldwide, nearly triple the total number on the official balance sheet, marking the devastation caused by the most severe pandemic on record. century.
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Goldman Sachs Group
