NEW YORK (AP) – The steep rise in coronavirus deaths appeared to be leveling off Monday in hard-hit New York, echoing a trend underway in Italy and Spain, while the crisis escalated alarmingly in Britain, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved to intensive care after his condition deteriorated.
Johnson, 55, was conscious and did not immediately need to be put on a ventilator, his office said. The prime minister is the world’s first known head of government to fall ill with the virus.
U.S. President Donald Trump said he asked “leading companies” to contact officials in London about therapies that could help Johnson, calling them complex treatments recently developed by the unnamed firms.
“We have contacted all of Boris’ doctors, and we’ll see what’s going to take place, but they are ready to go,” Trump told reporters.
The president said mitigation efforts are showing signs of slowing the spread of the virus. The nation’s top infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, was cautiously optimistic, saying that in New York, “what we have been doing has been working.”