US death toll eclipses China’s as reinforcements head to NYC

The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus climbed past 3,600 Tuesday, eclipsing China’s official count, as hard-hit New York City rushed to generate more doctors and ambulances and parked refrigerated morgue trucks on the streets to accumulate the dead.

The crisis hit near home for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who reported teary-eyed that his brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, was infected.

The governor pronounced the disaster unlike any other metropolis has weathered: “That is ongoing and the duration itself is debilitating and exhausting and depressing.”

Elsewhere all over the world, hard-hit Italy reported that the infection rate is apparently leveling off and new cases could start declining, but that the crisis is definately not over. Spain struggled to fight the collapse of its hospital system. Vladimir Putin’s Russia moved to crack down on quarantine violations and “fake news” about the outbreak. And China edged nearer to normal as stores in the epicenter city of Wuhan commenced reopening.

Worldwide, a lot more than 800,000 people have already been infected and over 40,000 have died, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Italy and Spain accounted for half the deaths, as the U.S. had over 180,000 infections, with an increase of dead than China’s official toll of about 3,300.

New York was the nation’s deadliest spot, with about 1,550 deaths statewide, almost all of them in New York City, which braced for what to get much worse in the coming weeks.

At Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, critically ill COVID-19 patients are filling intensive care units, surgical floors and operating rooms and waiting in the er for beds to be available, said Dr. Eric Wei of the city’s hospital agency.

“I’ve practiced emergency medicine for a long time, and I’m seeing things that I never could have imagined with regards to the things this virus can do to all ages, including people who were previously healthy,” he said.

A 1,000-bed emergency hospital set up at the mammoth Javits Convention Center started out taking non-coronavirus patients to help relieve the city’s overwhelmed health system. A Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds that arrived on Monday was likely to start accepting patients on Tuesday.

The indoor tennis center that is the site of the U.S. Open tournament is being converted into a hospital aswell.

The town also worked to generate 250 out-of-town ambulances and 500 paramedics to cope with a crush of emergency calls. The fire commissioner said ambulances are giving an answer to double their normal daily total of 3,000 calls to 911. A five-day stretch last week was the busiest in the annals of the city’s emergency services operation.

In addition, NY authorities sought to bring about more volunteer healthcare professionals and hoped to have them on board by Thursday. Nearly 80,000 former nurses, doctors and others are reported to be stepping forward, and the governor said officials are doing criminal background checks for disciplinary actions and otherwise making sure they are fit for duty.

Around the city, workers in protective gear have already been seen putting bodies of victims into refrigerated trailers. At some hospitals, like Lenox Hill in Manhattan, the trucks are parked on city streets, along sidewalks and before apartments. Cars and buses passed by as corpses were loaded by forklift at Brooklyn Hospital Center. People captured some of the scenes by cellphone.

As for Chris Cuomo, the 49-year-old TV newsman tweeted that he has suffered from fever, chills and shortness of breath and you will be doing his shows from his basement, where he has quarantined himself.

“Luckily we caught it early enough,” the governor said. “But it’s my children, it’s your loved ones, it’s our families. But this virus is that insidious, and we should keep that all at heart.”

Figures on deaths and infections all over the world are supplied by government health authorities and published by Johns Hopkins.

However the numbers are regarded with skepticism by public health authorities as a result of different counting practices, too little testing in places, the numerous mild cases which may have been missed, and perhaps government efforts to downplay the severe nature of the crisis.

For example, in Italy, where in fact the death toll was put at about 12,400, the country’s emergency coordinator, Domenico Arcuri, acknowledged that officials don’t have a handle how many persons are dying in the home or in nursing homes.

Still, there is a glimmer of hope there: Dr. Silvio Brusaferro, head of Italy’s institutes of health, said that three weeks right into a nationwide lockdown, the hardest-hit country in Europe is seeing the rate of new infections level off.

“The curve suggests we are at the plateau,” he said. But “arriving at the plateau doesn’t mean we've conquered the peak and we’re done. It means now we should commence to see the decline if we continue steadily to place maximum attention on what we do each day.”

With the country’s healthcare system buckling under the pressure, a field hospital, built-in just 10 days, was unveiled at the Milan fairgrounds.

“We made a promise and we kept it,” said the head of the project, former civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso, who finished up catching the virus while on the job and had to work from his hospital bed.

In Russia, lawmakers approved harsher punishments, including prison sentences of many years, for violating quarantine rules and spreading misinformation. The principle doctor at Moscow’s top hospital for coronavirus patients said he tested positive, weekly after shaking hands with Putin.

Spain reported a lot more than 840 new deaths, pushing the toll above 8,000 and forcing Madrid to open another non permanent morgue after an ice rink pressed into service the other day became overwhelmed.

A large number of hotels across Spain have already been converted into recovery rooms, and authorities are building field hospitals in sports centers, libraries and exhibition halls.

Israel’s Defense Ministry said it has converted a missile-production facility into an assembly line for ventilators.

In the smoldering spot of Louisiana, the death toll climbed to 239. And Tony Spell, a pastor charged with a misdemeanor for holding six church services in violation of the governor’s ban on public gatherings said he would continue to defy regulations “because the Lord told us to.”

Louisiana and Michigan were running out of ventilators, despite promises by the White House of more equipment.

Louisiana’s governor said the hard-hit New Orleans region is on track to run out of breathing machines by the weekend and hospital beds seven days later. The Trump administration has focused on sending 150 ventilators from the national stockpile, however the state hasn’t received an arrival date. Michigan said it requires 5,000 to 10,000 more.

Meanwhile, a senior military general said the Pentagon hasn't yet delivered the 2,000 ventilators it offered to the Department of Health insurance and Human Services two weeks ago because HHS has asked it to wait as the agency determines where in fact the devices should go.

In Florida, the Holland America cruise line pleaded with state officials to let two ships dock and carry off the sick and the dead. Dozens aboard have reported flu-like symptoms, and four persons have died.

But Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Fox News: “We cannot afford to have people who are not even Floridians dumped into South Florida burning up those valuable resources.”

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as for example fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health issues, it can cause severe symptoms like pneumonia.

Among the few positive signs: In Britain, where the number of dead reached nearly 1,800, the medical director of the National Health Service’s businesses in England said there is evidence that social distancing is working. And China reported just one single new death from the coronavirus and 48 new cases, all of them from overseas.