Speed of coronavirus deaths shock doctors as New York toll hits new high
09 April, 2020
New York state, epicenter of America's coronavirus crisis, set another single-day record of COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, as veteran doctors and nurses voiced astonishment at the speed with which patients were deteriorating and dying.
The quantity of known coronavirus infections in NY state alone approached 150,000 on Wednesday, even as authorities warned that the state death tally may understate the real number since it omits anyone who has perished at home.
"Every number is a face, " said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ordered flags flown at half-staff across New York in memory of the victims.
"This virus attacked the vulnerable and attacked the weak, and it's really our job as a society to safeguard the vulnerable."
Doctors and nurses say elderly patients and the ones with underlying health issues aren't the only kinds who appear relatively well one moment and at death's door another. It happens to the young and healthy, too.
Patients "look fine, feel fine, you then turn around and they are unresponsive," said Diana Torres, a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in NEW YORK, the center of the country's worst outbreak. "I'm paranoid, scared to go out of their room."
Nearly 430,000 cases of COVID-19, the highly infectious lung disease due to the coronavirus, were confirmed in america by Wednesday afternoon, including a lot more than 14,700 deaths. For the next straight day the virus killed at least 1,900 in a 24-hour period.
Cuomo said 779 persons had died in the past day in his state. NJ reported 275 had died there. Both totals exceeded one-day records from simply a day earlier.
Regardless of the grim figures, Cuomo said overall trends still appeared positive. Cuomo cited a drop in new hospitalizations and other data as evidence that New York's social-distancing restrictions were "bending the curve," helping to gain some control over the infection rate.
New York is among 42 states where governors have issued "stay-at-home" orders and closed all non-essential workplaces.
While public health specialists say such measures are vital for controlling the contagion, the restrictions have strangled the US economy, resulting in widespread layoffs, upheavals on Wall Street and projections of a extreme recession.
Cuomo said the loss of life would likely continue at current levels or upsurge in days ahead as critically ill patients die after prolonged bouts installed to ventilators.
Scaling back toll
US deaths because of coronavirus topped 14,700 on Wednesday, the next highest reported number on earth behind Italy, according to a Reuters tally.
New York state makes up about over a third of the US total.
Officials have warned Americans to expect alarming numbers of coronavirus deaths this week, even while an influential university model on Wednesday scaled back its projected US pandemic death toll by 26% to 60,000.
"We are in the midst of weekly of heartache," Vice President Mike Pence said during a White House briefing on Wednesday, but added, "we are realizing glimmers of hope."
Dr. Craig Smith, surgeon-in-chief at Presbyterian Hospital's Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan, heralded encouraging numbers that suggested a turning tide in Wednesday's edition of his daily newsletter to staff.
There were more discharges of patients than admissions for just two days running, he said, adding: "Hosanna!"
But that comes as cold comfort to some healthcare workers on leading lines, who told Reuters they have treated patients while experiencing symptoms of the novel coronavirus themselves without having to be able to get tested.
In Michigan, mostly of the hospital systems conducting widespread diagnostic screenings of staff, found more than 700 workers were infected - over a quarter of those tested.
The continued test kit shortages - even for the workers most at risk - is “scandalous” and a significant threat to the patients they treat, said Dr. Art Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
'Big bang'
At the White House on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said he'd like to reopen the united states economy with a "big bang" but not prior to the death toll is on the downslope.
Trump did not give a timeframe, but his chief economical adviser, Larry Kudlow, said on Tuesday a resumption of commerce was possible in four to eight weeks.
Louisiana is "realizing the flattening of the curve" with the amount of new coronavirus cases reported during the past a day - 746 - lower than recent days, Governor John Bel Edwards said. Louisiana had been one of the nation's hot spots.
California, like New York, had one of its highest single-day death tolls with 68 persons dying of COVID-19 during the past a day, Governor Gavin Newsom said. The state might not exactly see its infection curve flattening before end of May, requiring weeks more of social distancing, officials say.
NEW YORK officials said a recently available surge in people dying at home suggests the most populous US city may be undercounting the loss of life.
"I think that's a very real possibility," Cuomo told his daily news briefing.
So far NY City's announced death toll has reflected only laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses, mostly at hospitals. At least 200 people are thought to be dying in the home in the city every day during the pandemic, authorities said.
Pence warned that Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were cities of "particular concern" just as one future flash points in the epidemic.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com
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