As U.S. virus cases exceed 100,000, doctors decry scarcity of drugs and equipment

Doctors and nurses on leading lines of the U.S. coronavirus crisis pleaded on Friday for more protective gear and equipment to take care of waves of patients likely to overwhelm hospitals as the amount of known U.S. infections surpassed 100,000, with an increase of than 1,600 dead.

Physicians have called particular attention to a desperate dependence on additional ventilators, machines that help patients breathe and are widely necessary for those experiencing COVID-19, the respiratory ailment due to the highly contagious novel coronavirus.

Hospitals in NEW YORK, New Orleans, Detroit and other virus hot spots likewise have sounded the alarm about scarcities of drugs, medical supplies and trained staff as the number of confirmed U.S. cases rose by 15,000 on Friday to just over 100,000.

That was down slightly from more than 16,000 new cases reported on Thursday, the major one-day U.S. surge to date, but kept america as the world leader in the number of known infections, having surpassed China and Italy on Thursday.

“We are scared,” said Dr. Arabia Mollette of Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn. “We’re trying to fight for everybody else’s life, but we also fight for our lives aswell, because we’re also at the highest threat of exposure.”

The United States ranked sixth in death toll among the hardest hit countries, with at least 1,605 lives lost by Thursday evening, marking the 1st time the united states had recorded a lot more than 300 deaths in one day, according to a Reuters tally of official data. Worldwide, confirmed cases rose above 576,000 with 26,455 deaths, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported.

Even as hospital patient numbers steadily climbed, shortages of key medical supplies abounded.

One emergency room doctor in Michigan, an emerging epicenter of the pandemic, said he was using one paper nose and mouth mask for an entire shift due to a shortage and that hospitals in the Detroit area would soon go out of ventilators.

“We've hospital systems here in the Detroit area in Michigan who are getting to the finish of their way to obtain ventilators and have to get started on telling families that they can’t save their loved types because they don’t have sufficient equipment,” the physician, Dr. Rob Davidson, said in a video posted on Twitter.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday invoked emergency powers to require General Motors Co to start out building ventilators after he accused the major U.S. automaker of “wasting time” during negotiations.

He had previously resisted mounting demands him to invoke the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era statute that provides the president broad procurement powers in national emergencies, wanting to exert pressure on manufacturers to act voluntarily.

Sophia Thomas, a nurse practitioner at DePaul Community Health Center in New Orleans, where Mardi Gras celebrations late last month fueled an area outbreak in Louisiana’s major city, said the amounts of coronavirus patients “have already been staggering.”

“We are truly a hotbed of COVID-19 within New Orleans,” she said, adding that her hospital was trying to deal partly by shifting some patients to “telehealth” services that permit them to be evaluated from your home.

New York-area doctors say they experienced to recycle some protective gear, or resort to the black market.

Dr. Alexander Salerno of Salerno Medical Associates, an over-all medical practice with offices in northern New Jersey, described going right through a “broker” to pay $17,000 for masks and other protective equipment which should have cost about $2,500, and picking them up at an abandoned warehouse.

“You don’t get any names. You get just telephone numbers to text,” Salerno said. “And so you agree to a term. You wire the amount of money to a bank-account. They give you a period and an address to come quickly to.”

Nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital in NY said these were locking away or hiding N-95 respirator masks, surgical masks and other supplies that are prone to pilfering if left unattended.

“Masks disappear,” nurse Diana Torres said. “We hide everything in drawers before the nurses’ station.”