Triage tents set up in Central Park for coronavirus patient overflow from Mount Sinai West Hospital

Crews have begun assembling triage tents outside New York City hospitals that are already overwhelmed by coronavirus victims. 

The Mount Sinai system is setting up the temporary treatment facilities outside six of its hospitals – five in New York City and one in Long Island – as it prepares for a projected influx of COVID-19 patients. 

‘The tents will be critical in helping us limit the spread of the disease between patients and staff,’ hospital officials said in a statement last week, adding that they will expand the emergency room ‘footprint’. 

On Sunday workers began erecting tents in Central Park that will service overflow patients at Mount Sinai West Hospital.   

Crews are seen assembling a triage site for coronavirus patients from Mount Sinai West Hospital in Central Park on Sunday

The temporary triage site is one of six being set up outside Mount Sinai hospitals in New York City and Long Island

The temporary triage site is one of six being set up outside Mount Sinai hospitals in New York City and Long Island

Workers are seen unfolding tents and spacing them out on a grassy field as dozens of boxes of supplies waited to be unpacked

Workers are seen unfolding tents and spacing them out on a grassy field as dozens of boxes of supplies waited to be unpacked

A patient is seen arriving at Mount Sinai West Hospital on Thursday

A patient is seen arriving at Mount Sinai West Hospital on Thursday

The Central Park site is located near Columbus Circle, a few hundred yards from the Mount Sinai West emergency room on W 59th Street. 

Workers were seen unfolding massive tents and spacing them out on a grassy field where dozens of boxes of supplies waited to be unpacked. 

Mount Sinai West made headlines earlier this month after a photo emerged of three of its nurses wearing black garbage bags as makeshift gowns amid a dire shortage of personal protective equipment. 

On Tuesday, one of its nurses, 48-year-old Kious Kelly, died at the hospital after contracting coronavirus.  

There are also plans in place to put up tents outside Mount Sinai Beth Israel in Lower Manhattan, The Mount Sinai Hospital on the Upper East Side, Mount Sinai Morningside on the Upper West Side, Mount Sinai Brooklyn, and Mount Sinai South Nassau on Long Island.  

Hospital staff did not say how many patients each site will be able to treat at a time.  

New York City remains the epicenter of the US coronavirus outbreak, with 33,786 cases and 672 deaths reported as of Sunday morning. 

Coronavirus killed 161 people – one person per every 8.9 minutes – in the 24 hour span since Saturday morning, according to the latest data from City Hall. 

Queens, the largest borough, has been the hardest-hit by number of cases, hitting five-digits Sunday with 10,373.

It’s trailed by Brooklyn with 8,451, The Bronx with 6,145, Manhattan with 5,438 and Staten Island with 1,866.  

The Central Park site is located near Columbus Circle, yards from the Mount Sinai West emergency room on W 59th Street

The Central Park site is located near Columbus Circle, yards from the Mount Sinai West emergency room on W 59th Street

There are also plans in place to put up tents outside Mount Sinai Beth Israel in Lower Manhattan, The Mount Sinai Hospital on the Upper East Side, Mount Sinai Morningside on the Upper West Side, Mount Sinai Brooklyn, and Mount Sinai South Nassau on Long Island

 There are also plans in place to put up tents outside Mount Sinai Beth Israel in Lower Manhattan, The Mount Sinai Hospital on the Upper East Side, Mount Sinai Morningside on the Upper West Side, Mount Sinai Brooklyn, and Mount Sinai South Nassau on Long Island

Hospital staff did not say how many patients each site will be able to treat at a time

Hospital staff did not say how many patients each site will be able to treat at a time

Pedestrians walk through Central Park on Sunday morning as construction at the triage site got underway

Pedestrians walk through Central Park on Sunday morning as construction at the triage site got underway

The US currently leads the world in coronavirus infections with 132,647 reported as of Sunday afternoon

The US currently leads the world in coronavirus infections with 132,647 reported as of Sunday afternoon

Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed the grim new numbers in a press conference on Sunday where he ordered New York’s non-essential workers to stay in place for another two weeks and insisted that President Donald Trump’s new travel restrictions change nothing for the Empire State.  

Cuomo said that he supports the president’s decision to issue a travel advisory for New York but assured residents  that: ‘This is not a lockdown.’

Gov Andrew Cuomo ordered New York's non-essential workers to stay in place for another two weeks during a press conference on Sunday (pictured)

Gov Andrew Cuomo ordered New York’s non-essential workers to stay in place for another two weeks during a press conference on Sunday (pictured)

Trump had initially considered ordering a quarantine for the coronavirus hotspots of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, but abandoned that idea Saturday night. 

The president announced in a tweet that the quarantine would not go ahead and a travel advisory would be issued instead. The travel advisory urges residents of the tri-state area to immediately avoid any nonessential travel for two weeks.

‘I know we feel under attack. Yes, New York is the epicenter and these are different times and many people are frightened,’ Cuomo said, referring to the travel advisory and Rhode Island’s dramatic tactics of pulling over drivers with New York plates.

‘But look this is New York, we have made it through far greater things. We are going to be okay. We specialize in stamina in strength and instability. We are strong, we have endurance and we have stability. 

‘We know what we’re doing. We have a plan and any obstacle that we come across we will handle it,’ Cuomo said, adding that ‘there is no state in the nation that is better prepared’ than New York. 

‘New York is going to have what it needs and no one is going to attack New York unfairly and no one is going to deprive New York of what it needs.’ 

The governor then gave a run-down of the state’s number of confirmed cases. He said health officials conducted 16,000 tests Saturday night, bringing the total tests to 172,000, the most in the US. 

The governor said the state now has more than 59,000 confirmed coronavirus cases with 8,000 hospitalized and 2,000 people in ICUs. 

‘I don’t think you look at those numbers and conclude that nothing less than thousands of people will pass away,’ Cuomo said.  

Cuomo said the US Navy hospital ship, the Comfort, will be in New York on Monday. The ship will provide an additional 1,000 hospital beds as hospitals are predicted to become overwhelmed within the next week.  

New York currently nearly half of the nation’s 132,647 cases and 2,355 deaths. 

Mount Sinai execs are safely tucked away in their FLORIDA vacation homes as medical staff don garbage bags to protect themselves from the coronavirus 

While doctors and nurses at Mount Sinai West hospital in Manhattan are on the frontlines of New York City’s war against the coronavirus, top leaders Dr Kenneth Davis and Dr Arthur Klein are safely cooped up in their vacation homes in gated communities in Florida.  

Dr Davis, the 72-year-old CEO of the Mount Sinai Health System, has been staying at his six-bedroom mansion near Palm Beach for weeks. Davis made a staggering $6million in 2018, the New York Post reports. 

Klein, also 72-years-old and president of the Mount Sinai Health Network, has been lodging at his condo in Palm Beach since earlier in the month as well. 

The duo appear to be away from the intense battle taking place in the city, which has depleted resources and even killed a medical staff at a Manhattan facility.   

Dr Kenneth Davis

Dr Arthur Klein

While doctors and nurses at Mount Sinai West hospital in Manhattan have been on the frontlines of New York City’s war against the coronavirus, top leaders Dr Kenneth Davis and Dr Arthur Klein are away in gated communities in the Sunshine state

A shocking Facebook photo shows three nurses at Mount Sinai West wearing black garbage bags as makeshift protective gowns

A shocking Facebook photo shows three nurses at Mount Sinai West wearing black garbage bags as makeshift protective gowns

Kious Kelly, 48, died at Mount Sinai West hospital in Manhattan on Tuesday night, a week after he was admitted upon testing positive for coronavirus.

Kelly was an assistant nursing manager at Mount Sinai West, which has been hit by an urgent shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks and isolation gowns.

A shocking photo posted to Facebook shows three nurses at Mount Sinai West wearing black garbage bags as makeshift protective gowns. 

Kious Kelly, 48, died at Mount Sinai West hospital in Manhattan on Tuesday night, a week after he was admitted upon testing positive for coronavirus

Kious Kelly, 48, died at Mount Sinai West hospital in Manhattan on Tuesday night, a week after he was admitted upon testing positive for coronavirus

Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, the union president for the New York State Nurses Association, blasted the two executives for their absence. 

The union president said: ‘How can you inspire confidence in your employees who are in the front lines of the epicenter that you have their best interests at heart when you are 1,000 miles away?

‘Even more important, what are you doing to procure the PPE that is proven to save lives of caregivers and, ultimately, the patients we care for? We are not protected. And every day it is getting worse,’ 

On Friday, Dr Davis claimed that his own doctor instructed him to stay in Florida as he is above the age of 70. He added that he had already been in the state as he had been fundraising ‘before this started.’ 

Davis was in New York on March 2, participating in a press conference after the first case was found in the city. 

He was insistent, however, that he was still active in the day to day operations at the hospital. 

‘Do you know that from the time I wake up from the time I go to bed I am totally engaged?’ he huffed. ‘Do you know that I get over 400 emails that I reply to. That on a good day it’s every 90 seconds and that on a bad day it’s almost every minute. That I have teleconferencing with Zoom like constantly. When they don’t have a Zoom, I’m on the phone with them. I mean, please.’ 

Davis suggested that doctors provided similar directives to Klein. 

He also explained that he and Klein had been in contact with China to get 5.5 tons of gear to the hospital system.

James Tisch and Richard Friedman, chairmen of Mount Sinai’s board, backed Davis in a statement and referred to him as ‘an incredible hard working and committed leader in the world of healthcare.’  

 ‘He successfully led us through Superstorm Sandy, the Ebola crisis, the 2008 financial crisis and recession, turned our system from the verge of bankruptcy into one of the world’s leading healthcare systems and he will lead us through this crisis,’ they added. 

‘Any suggestion that he has not been personally engaged on every issue and working around the clock for his system and his staff is absolutely incorrect.’

Reporting by Matthew Wright for DailyMail.com 

 

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