Coronavirus: New York, Washington, California declared national disaster areas by Trump, as US Senate fails to advance economic stimulus package

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the US states of New York and Washington had been declared national disaster areas — California was added a few hours later — in a designation that should help get much needed medical supplies to areas hardest hit by coronavirus.

The news came as the US Senate failed to advance a massive economic stimulus package amid partisan bickering and as local officials in New York, site of the largest concentration of US deaths, criticised Trump for not moving faster in providing medical equipment and manpower.

“I can’t be blunt enough. If the president doesn’t act, people will die who could have lived otherwise,” New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday on NBC’s Meet The Press before the president’s late-afternoon briefing.

By Monday morning, the US Federal Reserve said it would widen an emergency lending programme that had been announced a week earlier to keep credit flowing to individuals and businesses.

The Fed’s lending programme will be expanded to include some corporate and municipal debt and makes its purchases of US Treasuries and other government-backed debt unlimited. The rate-setting body earlier said that it would buy at least $500 billion of Treasury securities and at least $200 billion of mortgage-backed securities.

US stocks fell on Monday morning despite the Fed intervention plan, brought down by the Senate’s failure to pass an economic stimulus package, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard &Poor’s 500 index each dropping nearly 3 per cent shortly after market open.

In a bid to address the growing frustration, Trump spent several minutes at the start of an early evening White House press conference outlining in forensic detail the number of masks, gowns, coveralls, respirators and other equipment he was sending to the hard-hit states.

This followed comments by Trump a few days earlier that the federal government was “not a shipping clerk” when asked about the dire shortages of testing kits and other supplies.

“Whatever the states should be getting, they’re getting,” Trump said Sunday. “These are three states that really do need help because they are, they are hit very hard.”

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Trump stuck initially to his script, outlining the many cruise ships, temporary hospitals, supercomputers and other medical resources being sent to the hardest-hit US areas to address the crisis. But as the 90-minute briefing stretched on, he increasingly strayed onto a wide range of other topics.

He also expressed confidence that the virus, which he pointedly and repeatedly referred to as the “Chinese virus”, would retreat soon. Global health authorities, US civil rights groups and Beijing have criticised his use of the term, which they say fuels stigmatisation and misunderstanding.

“You can be confident you have a leader who will always fight for you,” Trump said on Sunday. “This is going to be a victory, a great victory that in my opinion will happen much sooner than originally expected.”

With the crisis overwhelming America on multiple fronts, Senate Democrats blocked legislation late on Sunday on a third economic stimulus and relief package expected to involve as much as US$2 trillion for companies and ordinary Americans.

The measure failed to get the necessary 60 votes in the 100-member chamber for a procedural step, after days of negotiations and blown deadlines.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell had delayed a vote several times amid partisan differences. At issue is whether the bulk of the money should go to workers, as Democrats favour, or whether more should go to companies and banks as favoured by Republicans.

A repeat of the vote was scheduled for noon on Monday.

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Democrats say the latest version, negotiated in part by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, does not provide enough money for hospitals, health workers, cities and states. They also said it would give Trump unlimited control over some US$500 million in corporate loans.

“Senate Republicans are pushing to give the Trump administration a Mnuchin-controlled slush fund with virtually no oversight, and using the stock market and American lives as leverage,” said Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, among Democrats criticising the proposal on Sunday.

The need for urgent action was underscored by the growing number of people – including high-profile public personalities – who continue to test positive. Public health experts say infections among celebrities helps the public recognise the gravity of this crisis and act defensively. Washington has balked at nationwide restrictions, a step other countries have taken with smaller numbers of deaths.

Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, tested positive on Sunday, becoming the first US senator infected. Criticism mounted after he was seen swimming in the Senate gym and having lunch with colleagues soon before his test results were announced.

“It’s getting quite close to home,” Trump said on Paul’s infection.

This came amid word that Opera singer Placido Domingo tested positive and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was quarantined after her doctor tested positive.

The president declined to detail the exact state of US-China trade relations other than to say that Beijing was buying US agricultural products as outlined under a December 15 agreement, before pivoting. While he said he liked Chinese President Xi Jinping personally, Trump added that he was “a little upset with China … They should’ve told us about this”.

China did not accept offers of US medical and scientific help, he added, “out of pride”.

Some 353,000 people in nearly 150 countries worldwide have been infected and around 15,400 have died as of Monday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University, with the numbers rising hourly. Those testing positive in the United States, the world’s largest economy, rose to more than 35,240 cases with 417 deaths by Monday morning.

Over the weekend, New York surpassed Washington as the US epicentre, with the state accounting for 153 deaths compared with 95 for Washington. But officials warned that at this stage the concentration in these two states might be due more to the number of people tested in these locations.

The 473 deaths moved the nation to No 6 on the pandemic’s list of most fatalities, after Italy, China, Spain, Iran and France.

In the wake of weeks of denial by Trump that the coronavirus was a crisis, and his often contradictory messaging and questionable facts, New York governor Andrew Cuomo and de Blasio have emerged as steady, sober voices during the crisis.

By Sunday, nearly one-third of Americans had been ordered to stay home to slow the spread of the pandemic as Ohio and Louisiana joined New York, California, Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey in tightening restrictions.

With many senators in their 70s and 80s, Trump said he would be in favour of some sort of remote voting for members on a temporary basis, something that is not allowed.

He also said he was looking at releasing totally non-violent prisoners amid concern that jails were an incubator for the disease.

Asked at the press conference whether his family had sold stock before the crisis fully hit, he termed it a “nasty” question, before citing the great financial sacrifice he made to take the job.

“It cost me billions of dollars to become president, to be president of the United States,” he said. “I’m being sued all over the place.”

“I think it’s very hard for rich people to run for office,” he said, adding that he’s still glad he did it. “I’m a wartime president. This is a war.”

Additional reporting by Robert Delaney