Global coronavirus cases climb past 100,000
The total number of global cases of the novel coronavirus on Friday climbed above 100,000, according to reports from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The virus that originated in Wuhan, China, reached a global tally of 100,347 cases, with at least 3,400 deaths as a result of the infection.
The new total comes just as President Trump signed an $8.3 billion emergency spending bill to combat the spread of the virus in the United States earlier in the day.
The newly signed bill will allocate about $7.7 billion to federal, state and local agencies to combat the virus and provides an additional $500 million to subsidize Medicare telehealth restrictions.
The new number of cases reported by the WHO also comes as the number of cases in the U.S. climbed to 233 across 18 different states, according to Johns Hopkins data. The data also shows that, so far, 14 people in America have died from the virus while 8 people have fully recovered.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized China the same day for lack of transparency since the start of the outbreak, saying that the government could have provided more insight before the outbreak reached this point.
“Remember, this is the Wuhan coronavirus that’s caused this, and the information that we got at the front end of this thing wasn’t perfect and has led us now to a place where much of the challenge we face today has put us behind the curve,” Pompeo said in a CNBC interview.
“That’s not the way infectious disease doctors tell me it should work. It’s not the way America works with transparency and openness and the sharing of the information that needs to take place,” he said.
Italy, the hardest-hit country in the European Union since the outbreak, will also launch a stimulus package of 7.5 billion euros ($8.4 billion) to aid in the containment of the coronavirus, Bloomberg reported.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed..