U.S. coronavirus death toll rises past 3,000 on deadliest day; New York governor begs for help New York
31 March, 2020
The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic climbed past 3,000 on Monday, the deadliest day yet in the country's mounting crisis, while NY cheered the arrival of a gleaming 1,000-bed U.S. Navy hospital ship as a sign of hope in the city's desperate fight.
In a grim new milestones marking the spread of the virus, total deaths over the United States hit 3,017, including at least 540 on Monday, and the reported cases climbed to a lot more than 163,000, according to a Reuters tally.
People in NY and NJ lined both sides of the Hudson River to cheer the U.S Navy ship Comfort, a converted oil tanker painted white with giant red crosses, since it sailed at night Statue of Liberty accompanied by support ships and helicopters.
The Comfort will treat non-coronavirus patients, including those that require surgery and critical care, in order to free up other resources to fight the virus, the Navy said.
"It's a wartime atmosphere and most of us have to pull together," said NEW YORK Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was simply among the dignitaries to greet the ship's arrival at the Midtown Manhattan pier.
Hospitals in the brand new York City area have already been overrun with patients experiencing COVID-19, the respiratory illness due to the virus. Officials have appealed for volunteer healthcare workers.
"We can't take care of you if we can not manage ourselves," said Krystal Horchuck, a nurse with Virtua Memorial Hospital in New Jersey. "I think most of us have accepted the fact that we are most likely going to understand this. It's just that you want to survive. We're all being exposed to it at some point."
The United States gets the most confirmed cases on the planet, a number that is more likely to soar when tests for the virus are more widespread.
President Donald Trump told a White House briefing that more than 1 million Americans have been tested for coronavirus - significantly less than 3% of the populace. While the USA has ramped up testing after some setbacks, it still lags countries like Italy and South Korea on a per capita basis.
"Challenging times are ahead for another 30 days, which is a very vital 30 days," Trump told reporters. "The more we dedicate ourselves today, the more quickly we will emerge on the far side of the crisis."
In California, another hard-hit state, Governor Gavin Newsom said the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations had almost doubled within the last four days and the amount of ICU patients had tripled. Officials there also appealed for medical volunteers.
CENTRAL PARK HOSPITALS
To help ease the pressure in NY, construction of a 68-bed field hospital commenced on Sunday in Manhattan's Central Park. The white tents being set up evoked a wartime feel within an island of green typically utilized by New Yorkers to exercise, picnic and revel in the first signs of spring.
The makeshift facility, provided by the Mount Sinai Health System and non-profit organization Samaritan's Purse, is likely to start accepting patients on Tuesday, de Blasio said.
NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, just about the most prominent public figures of the coronavirus crisis, told a news conference the state may need to step in to close playgrounds in the country's most populous city so that you can enforce social distancing and slow the spread of the virus.
Cuomo issued an urgent appeal for medical volunteers Monday amid a "staggering" number of deaths from the coronavirus, as he and health officials warned that the crisis unfolding in NEW YORK is just a preview of what other communities across the U.S. could soon face.
"Please come help us in New York now," Cuomo said as the state's death toll climbed by a lot more than 250 in a single day to a complete greater than 1,200 victims, almost all of them in the town. He said yet another 1 million healthcare workers are had a need to tackle the crisis.
"We've lost over 1,000 New Yorkers," Cuomo said. "If you ask me, we're beyond staggering already. We've reached staggering."
Even prior to the governor's appeal, near to 80,000 former nurses, doctors and other professionals in NY were upgrading to volunteer, and a Navy hospital ship, also delivered to the city after 9/11, had arrived with 1,000 beds to relieve pressure on overwhelmed hospitals.
"Whatever it really is that they want, I'm ready to do," said Jerry Kops, a musician and former nurse whose tour with the show Blue Man Group was abruptly halted by the outbreak.
He returned to his Long Island home, where he volunteered to become a nurse again. While waiting to be reinstated, Kops has been helping at an assisted-living home near his house in Shirley, NY.
Cuomo and de Blasio are among an evergrowing chorus of officials who've voiced frustration at Trump's handling of the crisis and a shortage of ventilators and personal protective equipment.
"I am not engaging the president in politics," Cuomo, a Democrat, said of Trump, a Republican. "My only goal is to activate the president in partnership."
Ford Motor Co said on Monday it will produce 50,000 ventilators over the next 100 days at a Michigan plant in cooperation with General Electric's healthcare unit, and may then manufacture 30,000 per month.
Officials in states hard hit by the pandemic have pleaded with the Trump administration and manufacturers to increase production of ventilators to handle a surge in patients struggling to breathe. On Friday, Trump said he'd invoke powers beneath the Defense Production Act to direct manufacturers to produce ventilators.
CHILLING NUMBERS
U.S. health officials are urging Americans to check out stay-at-home orders before end of April to support the spread of the virus, which started in China and has infected about three-quarters of a million persons around the world.
"If we do things together well - almost perfectly - we could get in the number of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities," Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House's coronavirus task force, told NBC's "Today" show.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the top of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a White House briefing that he expected a coronavirus outbreak in the fall, aswell, but he said the country would be better ready to respond.
Authorities in New Orleans were setting up a field hospital at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center - the same site where a large number of Hurricane Katrina refugees gathered in 2005 - to take care of an expected overflow of patients.
Dr Thomas Krajewski, an emergency room doctor at St. Barnard Parish hospital in New Orleans, said he previously watched patients be admitted to a healthcare facility and seem ready to get better and then get worse.
"Most of them have passed on already in a way that ... it's not normal," he said. "It isn't something that anybody had ready to do. And we're kind of writing the book as we go."
The governors of Maryland, Virginia and Arizona issued"stay-at-home" orders as cases rose in those states, as did Washington, D.C.
Source: japantoday.com