Trump deploys hospital ships in coronavirus ‘war’

NEW YORK: The United States is to deploy military hospital ships to fight the coronavirus, Donald Trump said Wednesday, as he likened himself to a “wartime president” and invoked a Korean War-era law.

As America and Canada announced they were closing their border to non-essential travelers, New York governor Andrew Cuomo said Trump was dispatching the navy´s 1,000-room USNS Comfort to the city´s harbor. The moves came as the number of deaths in the US from COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, reached 150, with confirmed cases soaring to more than 9,300, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. US stocks suffered deep losses as Trump tried to downplay fears that the unemployment rate in the world´s number one power could spike to 20 percent because of the fast-spreading epidemic. Meanwhile America´s “Big Three” car makers — General Motors, Fiat Chrysler and Ford — announced that they would halt operations throughout North America through the end of the month.