Los Angeles, Nov 18: Four people were shot dead and six others wounded while watching a football game in the backyard of a central California home on Sunday, police said.
"Three people died on scene," deputy Fresno police chief Michael Reed told reporters.
"One was critical and... succumbed to his injuries" after being rushed to a hospital, he added.
Mexico City, Aug 1: The number of people, who have died of COVID-19 in Mexico, has risen by 688 to 46,688 within the past 24 hours, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said.
The number of victims in Mexico is now higher than in the United Kingdom, where 46,119 people have died of the disease. The largest number of fatalities - 153,311 - has been recorded in the United States, while Brazil comes second with 92,475 deaths.
Lopez-Gatell also said on late Friday that the number of confirmed coronavirus cases had increased by 8,458 to 424,637 over the past day.
A day earlier, the Latin American nation recorded 7,730 new cases of the coronavirus, with 639 fatalities.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, over 17.5 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 677,000 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Washington, Apr 28: US President while addressing a news conference on coronavirus pandemic said his administration has launched "very serious investigations" into China's response to the novel coronavirus.
"And we are not happy with China, we are not happy with that whole situation, because we believe it could have been stopped at the source," he said. "It could have been stopped quickly and it wouldn't have spread all over the world," the BBC reported.
Trump has been critical of China as the pandemic has progressed and has frequently touted his decision to close the US borders to China in an effort to curb the outbreak. Some health experts have said the effort bought time for the US to prepare, but the Trump administration has been accused of squandering the opportunity.
"Nobody except one country can be held accountable for what happened," Trump said.
"Nobody's blaming anybody here, we're looking at a group of people that should've stopped it at the source."
The US will never forget those who were "sacrificed for a reason of incompetence or something else other than incompetence," he added.
"They" - referring to China - "could've protected the whole world - not just us - the whole world," he said.
At the starting of the conference Trump said COVID-19 cases are declining or stablising across the country.
"In all cases getting better," he said. "Really a horrible situation that we've been confronted with, but they're moving along."
He added there's a "hunger" to get back to work.
"Ensuring the health of our economy is vital to ensuring the health of our nation - these goals work in tandem."
The president has suggested an unnamed individual "a long time ago" could have stopped the "unnecessary death[s]" due to COVID-19.
"There has been so much unnecessary death in this country," he said.
"It could've been stopped and it could've been stopped short, but somebody a long time ago, it seems, decided not to do it that way and the whole world is suffering because of it."
He did not say who he was referencing and gave no other details.
Trump was asked if he has considered delaying the November presidential election.
"I never even thought of changing the date of the election," he answered. "Why would I do that? November 3rd. That's a good number."
Trump called the suggestion "made up propaganda" and said that "sleepy Joe" Biden - his presumptive Democratic rival - was likely unaware his campaign had put the statement out.
Former Vice-President Joe Biden said at a virtual fundraiser last week that he thought Trump would "try to kick back the election somehow".
The president has frequently levelled insults at his Democratic opponent by questioning the former vice-president's mental fortitude.
"I look forward to that election," Trump said.
The president responded to a question criticising Health Secretary Alex Azar's early downplaying of the disease by saying it was "unfair". He claimed Democrats did the same, including Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.
"I was very fortunate through luck or whatever that we closed the border, we put a ban on China," he said.
"But I could tell you that Nancy Pelosi was dancing in the streets in Chinatown. She wanted to go, let's go out and party. That was late in February."
Back in February, Pelosi had encouraged people to visit San Francisco's Chinatown to help struggling businesses. She did not propose any parties, as the president suggested.
The city issued a stay-at-home order in March.
A reporter asked: If an American president loses more Americans over the course of six weeks than died during the entirety of the Vietnam war, does he deserve to be reelected?
Trump took the question in stride.
"So, yeah, we've lost a lot of people but if you look at what original projections were, 2.2 million, we're probably heading to 60,000 - 70,000," he said.
"It's far too many - one person is too many for this. I think we've made a lot of really good decisions," he added. "The big decision was closing the border, doing the ban on people coming in from China."
He also brings up the "unbelievable" job his administration did with ventilators.
"I think we've done a great job. And I will say this - one person is too many."
Beijing, Jun 17: Beijing's airports cancelled more than 1,200 flights and schools in the Chinese capital were closed again on Wednesday as authorities rushed to contain a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a wholesale food market.
The city reported 31 new cases on Wednesday while officials urged residents not to leave Beijing, with fears growing about a second wave of infections in China, which had largely brought its outbreak under control.
Tens of thousands of people linked to the new Beijing virus cluster -- believed to have started in the sprawling Xinfadi wholesale food market -- are being tested, with almost 30 residential compounds in the city now under lockdown.
At least 1,255 scheduled flights were cancelled Wednesday morning, state-run People's Daily reported, nearly 70 percent of all trips to and from Beijing's main airports.
The outbreak had already forced authorities to announce a travel ban for residents of "medium- or high-risk" areas of the city, while requiring other residents to take nucleic acid tests in order to leave Beijing.
Meanwhile, several provinces were quarantining travellers from Beijing, where all schools -- which had mostly reopened -- have been ordered to close again and return to online classes.
"The epidemic situation in the capital is extremely severe," Beijing city spokesman Xu Hejian warned Tuesday.
Mass testing under way
Officials have closed 11 markets and disinfected thousands of food and beverage businesses in Beijing after the outbreak was detected.
The city has now reported 137 infections over the last six days, with six new asymptomatic cases and three suspected cases on Wednesday, according to the municipal health commission.
An additional two domestic cases, one in neighbouring Hebei province and another in Zhejiang, were reported by national authorities on Wednesday, while there were 11 imported cases.
Authorities have so far banned group sports, ordered people to wear masks in crowded enclosed spaces, and suspended inter-provincial group tours in response to the outbreak.
Officials said that since May 30, more than 200,000 people had visited Xinfadi market, which supplies more than 70 percent of Beijing's fruit and vegetables.
More than 8,000 workers there were tested and quarantined.
Until the new outbreak, most of China's recent cases were nationals returning from abroad as COVID-19 spread globally, and the government had all but declared victory against the disease.
China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that the virus type found in the Beijing outbreak was a "major epidemic strain" in Europe.
Comments
Add new comment