This article is more than 5 months old

This article is more than 5 months old

Coronavirus cases in the US have increased to more than 30,000, while leaders in New York urged President Trump on Sunday for more federal help, warning more people would die without it.

There have been 390 reported deaths in the US, with New York state the country’s hardest hit, with 114 deaths.

The state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, and New York city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, both heaped pressure on the White House on Sunday to urgently provide federal assistance with desperately needed medical supplies.

“If the president does not act, people will die who could have lived otherwise,” De Blasio told NBC. “If we don’t get more ventilators in the next 10 days people will die who don’t have to die,” he added, speaking to CNN.

Cuomo called on the the federal government to take over acquisition of medical supplies so states do not have to compete with each other. “Time matters, minutes count, and this is literally a matter of life and death,” he said at Sunday press conference.

He called on Trump to enact the Defense Production Act, which would mandate firms to make essential medical supplies such as masks. Trump has so far resisted calls to do so, saying firms were acting themselves to make supplies.

Cuomo also repeated a request for the army corps of engineers to build temporary hospitals as the governor estimated between 40 and 80% of New Yorkers will contract the virus.

Earlier Cuomo had said the government is “literally scouring the globe looking for medical supplies”.

“We’ve identified 2 million N95 masks, which are the high-protection masks,” he said. “One million masks won’t get us through the crisis, but it will make a significant, significant contribution to New York City’s mask issue.”

Trump hit back at his critics on the response, tweeting on Sunday that they should not be “blaming the federal government for their own shortcomings”.

He added: “We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!”

In Washington DC, meanwhile, negotiators from Congress and the White House are in weekend talks over a $1tn-plus economic rescue package, promoted by Donald Trump, with hopes of a final vote on Monday.

Hopes of a deal to stimulate the embattled US economy looked bleak by Sunday afternoon, however, as the AP reported both “congressional Republican and Democratic leaders said there was no deal yet after an hour-long meeting at the otherwise empty US Capitol.”

Senator Rand Paul, of Kentucky, revealed he had tested positive for coronavirus, the first member of the Senate to do so.

Also in New York City, at least 38 people have now tested positive at the notorious Rikers Island complex and nearby facilities. According to the board that oversees the city’s jail system, more than half of the new cases are incarcerated men.

Online, volunteers including small businesses, at-home seamstresses and even fashion designer Christian Siriano answered Cuomo’s call to produce masks for health workers. In Michigan, staff at a Detroit hospital began creating homemade face masks for workers.

Healthcare workers from Oklahoma City to Minneapolis sought donations of protective equipment. Rural hospitals were particularly strained as people increasingly felt the pandemic closing in.

Drive-thru testing sites continue to sprout up for quicker and safer access for at-risk people. But much like the rest of the US pandemic response, the system has been marked by inconsistencies, delays and shortages.

Many people have reported waiting hours or days for a test after communicating symptoms to their doctors, leading to increased calls from health experts for Trump to tap the US national guard to aid in setting up mobile test sites across the country.

But more than a week after Trump promised states and retail stores such as Walmart and CVS would open drive-thru test centers, few sites are up and running, and they are not yet open to the general public.

The calls for increased mobile testing comes as more states enact tighter restrictions on residents to curb public gatherings and promote social distancing.

Earlier this week, Hawaii’s governor, David Ige, instituted a mandatory 14-day self-quarantine for anyone traveling to the state. Violating the order is now a misdemeanor punishable by a $5,000 fine or imprisonment of up to a year.

Governor Ige said the restrictions were to “mitigate the spread of the virus” since a majority are “linked to travel”.

Officials in DC are hoping to strike a rescue deal to steady a nation thoroughly upended by the coronavirus pandemic. The economic package could provide nearly $2tn to stimulate the US economy through paychecks to citizens and small businesses and funds to hospitals.

Trump continued to strike a confident tone about the nation’s ability to defeat the pandemic soon, even as health leaders nationwide acknowledged that the country is nowhere near the peak for the outbreak.

“We are going to be celebrating a great victory in the not too distant future,” he said.