Deaths in US coronavirus hit 16,454 as British PM Boris Johnson leaves intensive care

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Boris Johnson seen clapping for carers before his admission to hospital. Photograph: Pippa Fowles/10 Downing Street/AFP via Getty Images

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Updates about coronavirus crisis in the United States of America, as at Thursday night of April 9, 2020 put the deaths toll at 16,454 with 462,391 confirmed cases and 25,139 recoveries so far.

This is also as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday was moved out of intensive care where he was being treated for the coronavirus, a Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement. Johnson, 55, is the first world leader to test positive for the virus.

“The Prime Minister has been moved this evening from intensive care back to the ward, where he will receive close monitoring during the early phase of his recovery,” the spokesperson said, adding that Johnson is in “extremely good spirits.”

The virus has sickened more than 1.5 million people across the world, killing over 93,400 people, according to Johns Hopkins University.
N95 masks look simple enough: two outer layers of fabric that form the shape of the mask, with a thin filter between. It’s that sandwiched inner layer that complicates the mask’s construction and differentiates medical-grade protection from a homemade mask.
A surge in demand for material for that layer is a key reason for the global shortage of N95s.
The filter is made of thousands of nonwoven fibers, each thinner than a strand of hair and fused together through a process known as melt-blown extrusion. 

Manufacturers of the material have been pushed to produce at unprecedented levels, straining an industry that relies on complex machinery and specialized training that’s part technical and part “art form,” according to some in the industry.

“The supply chain has gotten nuts for this particular material,” said Nozi Hamidi, vice president of marketing and business development for SWM International, one of roughly two dozen domestic manufacturers of melt-blown material. “We experienced this when SARS happened 17 or so years ago, but not to this extent. This is just absolutely insane.”


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