New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has revealed the locations for makeshift hospitals in the state and has ordered more than 2 million masks and 6,000 ventilators to be delivered today, as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases soar past 10,000.
In a live conference on Saturday, Cuomo told the state’s 19million residents that he had identified a number of locations to set up hospitals as the state’s hospitals and healthcare workers have been buckling under the pressure of the mounting crisis.
The state is ‘increasing hospital capacity’ and ‘trying to reduce the spread over a period of months’, he said.
‘We are now working with hospitals to reconfigure space to get more beds and find more staff to manage the beds,’ Cuomo said.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has revealed the locations for makeshift hospitals in the state and has ordered more than 1.5 million masks and 6,000 ventilators to be delivered today, as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases soar past 10,000
He identified a number of possible sites for makeshift hospitals today including: the Jacob K Javits Center on 11th Avenue, New York City; the Westchester Convention Center; the New Academic Building, SUNY; and Stony Brook University in Stony Brook.
In Javits, this will provide an additional 1,000 beds, he said.
The number of beds available in the other locations is not yet known he said.
Cuomo said the hospitals would give New York a ‘regional distribution and capacity’ to tackle the crisis.
He said the priority is on ‘increasing supplies… one of the most critical activities’.
‘We are literally scouring the globe looking for medical supplies,’ he said.
Two million N95 masks have been identified and one million will be sent to New York City and 500,000 to Long Island on Saturday, he said.
‘They won’t get us through the crisis but they will make a significant contribution,’ he said.
Clothing companies have offered their support, by rerouting production away from fashion apparel and to masks.
6000 ventilators have also been located and will ‘be coming in over the next several weeks’, he said.
However he admitted that this is still far lower than the 30,000 ventilators needed by the state.
Cuomo also thanked Dr Fauci as ‘an extraordinary American’ who has helped him put together the policies needed across the state.
Makeshift hospital sites: The Jacob K Javits Center on 11th Avenue, New York City
The Westchester Convention Center
New Academic Building, SUNY
The campus at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook
In New York City between the hours of 10am and 6pm on Friday, 14 people died from coronavirus – the equivalent of almost two people every single hour.
This comes after Donald Trump declared New York State a major disaster area Friday night, after the number of confirmed cases skyrocketed.
This marks the first time ever in US history that a president has ever declared a major disaster area over a public health threat.
It came four days after Cuomo had urged the president to take action.
FEMA will now be able to send personnel and resources to the state, as well as set up mobile coronavirus testing centers, disinfect public facilities and provide in-demand medical supplies including face masks, gloves and surgical gowns.
The declaration also allows the US military to make further assistance plans.
The US military is now working on plans to takeover hotels, college dormitories and sports arenas in New York and turn them into ICU-like medical facilities in desperate efforts to bolster facilities as hospitals buckle under the number of cases.
The military had previously said that it will be making two hospital ships and more than five million face masks, coronavirus test kits and ventilators available to regions that are most in need.
Ventilators are in huge demand across New York State and city hospitals.
At the Bronx’s Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, a doctor told the New York Times that they only had a few ventilators left for coronavirus patients who needed them to breathe.
In Queens, a doctor revealed that an elderly patient experiencing coronavirus symptoms died on the hospital ward floor.
On Friday, New York City was declared the epicenter of the US outbreak by city Mayor Bill de Blasio.
‘We constitute 30 percent of the cases in the US and 70 per cent of the cases in New York State. Whether we like it or not, we are the epicenter,’ he said.
The National Institutes of Health Friday warned that up to 70,000 Americans could be confirmed as having coronavirus by the end of next week in ‘dramatic increase’ of cases, up from the current tally of more than 19,600 confirmed cases.