(NEW YORK) — Here are today’s In Crisis headlines:
Former officer charged with George Floyd’s death released on bail
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with the death of George Floyd, was released Wednesday from the Hennepin County Jail on $1 million bond. Chauvin is charged with five felonies, including second-degree murder and manslaughter, in connection with Floyd’s death while in police custody May 25, and is the white officer seen in a widely circulated video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, pinning Floyd, a Black man, to the street while Floyd repeatedly protested, “I can’t breathe.” Chauvin was fired the day after Floyd’s death, which sparked protests around the world. As conditions of Chauvin’s release, he’s prohibited from leaving Minnesota without written court approval, or from having any contact with Floyd’s family.
Unemployment claims remain at record high with 840,000 new claims
Americans filed an additional 840,000 unemployment claims in the week ending October 3, according to figures released this morning by the U.S. Department of Labor, marking the 29th straight week of historically high unemployment claims. The number is a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week’s level, which itself was revised up by 12,000, from 837,000 to 849,000. The report also shows that 25,505,499 people are currently receiving unemployment benefits under state and federal programs. While parts of the economy have seen a rebound from pandemic-driven declines, the current unemployment claims numbers are higher than anything seen before the current economic downturn. With President Trump’s move Tuesday to cut off talks on another government aid package to help Americans bear the economic hardships of the pandemic, the fear among economists is that it will further weaken an economy straining to recover from a record collapse, and deepen the hardships for jobless Americans and struggling businesses.
COVID-19 numbers
Here’s the latest data on COVID-19 coronavirus infections and deaths.
Latest reported numbers globally per Johns Hopkins University
Global diagnosed cases: 36,212,651
Global deaths: 1,056,744. The United States has the most deaths of any single country, with 211,844.
Number of countries/regions: at least 188
Total patients recovered globally: 25,268,014
Latest reported numbers in the United States per Johns Hopkins University
There are at least 7,511,428 reported cases in 50 states + the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. This is more than in any other country.
U.S. deaths: at least 211,844. New York State has the greatest number of reported deaths in the U.S., with 33,226.
U.S. total patients recovered: 2,999,895
U.S. total people tested: 111,077,086
The greatest number of reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is in California, with 842,338 confirmed cases out of a total state population of 39.51 million. That ranks third in the world after Maharashtra, India, which has 1,480,489 reported cases, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, which has 1,016,755 reported cases.
President Trump calls COVID-19 infection a “blessing in disguise”; at least 34 White House staffers now infected
President Trump has called getting COVID-19 a “blessing in disguise.” In a nearly five-minute video posted to Twitter Wednesday evening, the president said he thought the experimental monoclonal antibody cocktail he received from pharmaceutical company Regeneron on a compassionate-use basis “was the key to his recovery,” and that he wants everyone to have access to it. He also said he had been feeling “not so hot,” but now “I feel great. I feel, like, perfect.”
Trump’s comments came the same day an internal government email, dated Wednesday and obtained by ABC News, stated that “34 White House staffers and other contacts” in recent days had been infected with the coronavirus. That’s ten more than were known to be infected as of Tuesday. The memo was distributed among senior leadership at FEMA, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security and the agency responsible for managing the continuing national response to the public health disaster.
Also Wednesday, sources confirmed to ABC News that Crede Bailey, the head of the White House Security office, has been hospitalized with COVID-19 since September and is very ill. The White House has declined to comment on the report. Additionally, Gen. Gary Thomas, the Marine Corps number-two general, tested positive for COVID 19 after attending a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last Friday. A Coast Guard admiral who attended that meeting later tested positive for the virus, sending the nation’s top military officers into quarantine. The Pentagon says so far, there haven’t been any other positive cases.
As of Thursday morning, there are more than 7.5 million reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and nearly 212,000 U.S. deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, both of which are more than in any other country.
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