The US Declares ‘National Emergency’ over Coronavirus

US President Donald Trump has declared a national state of emergency on Friday and released more than $50 billion of the federal funds to fight the battle against the coronavirus pandemic.

In the emergency news conference, conducted from the White House lawn, the President declared, “To unleash the full power of the federal government, I am officially declaring a national emergency. The next eight weeks are critical. We can learn and we will turn a corner on this virus.”

The President also called on all the states of the country to set up emergency operation centers and said that his government is partnering with the private sector health care facilities to “vastly increase and accelerate our capacity to test” for the virus, amid criticism about a lack of test kits across the country.

President Trump also said, “I am also asking every hospital in this country to activate emergency preparedness plan to meet the needs of Americans everywhere. We’ll remove or eliminate every obstacle necessary to deliver our people the care that they need and that they are entitled to. No resource will be spared, nothing whatsoever”.

Recently, the US authorities have come under criticism for lagging behind in deploying the essential test kits, which according to the leading health experts have allowed the virus to spread beyond the country’s ability to detect it.

On Friday, the Trump administration has announced that it was providing almost $1.3 million in funding to two labs to develop tests that can deliver test results in less than one hour namely DiaSorin Molecular of California and QIAGEN of Maryland.

Meanwhile, the US Food and Drug Administration has given the emergency approval to Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche for a new and much faster coronavirus test. After this approval half, a million additional tests will be available by early next week.

The President said that he hopes for another 1.4 million tests, which could be made available next week and more than five million tests within a month.

In the United States of America, so far 58 emergencies have been pronounced under the National Emergencies Act since it was first enacted in the year 1976, of which around 31 emergencies are still in effect. The national emergency that was declared following the 9/11 terrorist attacks has been renewed every year since 2001. 

During the H1N1 influenza pandemic, the then US President Barack Obama also enacted the National Emergency Act.