The coronavirus continued its punishing march on Tuesday as more United States governors ordered their citizens to stay at home, more states pleaded for rapidly diminishing stocks of emergency supplies, and more experts predicted that the devastating economic effects of the pandemic could stretch into next year.
In Florida, the state’s Republican governor belatedly issued a stay-at-home order for residents — but only after a morning telephone call with President Trump, who later said he still had no plans for a similar national directive.
In Washington, Democrats and Republicans in Congress, as well as President Trump, are increasingly looking toward enacting a huge new infrastructure plan that could create thousands of jobs.
And in New York, where hundreds of new deaths pushed the tristate region’s toll past 2,300, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo pleaded for a supplies for his overwhelmed hospitals and desperate health care workers. “Really, the only hope for a state at this point is the federal government’s capacity to deliver,” Mr. Cuomo said.
The problem is that the federal government has nearly emptied its emergency stockpile of protective medical supplies like masks, gowns and gloves, according to a senior administration official, and some states desperate for much-needed ventilators received them only to discover that the machines did not work.
More bad news was expected Thursday. The Department of Labor reported last week that more than three million people filed for unemployment from March 15 to March 21, the largest single-week increase in American history.
This Thursday’s number, which reflects claims filed last week, could rise to 5.6 million, according to an analysis of Google search data by the economists Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham of Yale and Aaron Sojourner of the University of Minnesota.
If these forecasts are accurate, there will be as many claims in two weeks as in the first six months of the Great Recession.
At the same time, fears are growing that the downturn could be far more punishing and long lasting than initially feared — potentially enduring into next year, and even beyond.
“This is already shaping up as the deepest dive on record for the global economy for over 100 years,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard economist. “Everything depends on how long it lasts, but if this goes on for a long time, it’s certainly going to be the mother of all financial crises.”
U.S. coronavirus deaths surge past 4,600 as officials start to compare struggle with Italy’s outbreak.
Coronavirus deaths in the United States passed 4,600 Wednesday as Vice President Pence issued an ominous warning that America’s situation is most comparable to Italy’s struggle with the virus, which has pushed that nation’s hospitals to capacity and has left more than 13,000 people dead despite a weeks-long lockdown.
The prediction was among a fresh batch of reminders that as the United States makes its agonizing march toward the peak of the covid-19 pandemic, each day will bring more suffering than the last.
In total, the nation added at least 900 virus-related deaths to its overall tally on Wednesday, as the number of confirmed coronavirus infections rose to more than 211,000. State officials warned their hospitals might soon run short on needed masks, gowns and ventilators, and Homeland Security officials acknowledged the federal government’s emergency stockpile of supplies also was nearly exhausted.
New York again absorbed the most pain, tallying 391 new deaths on Wednesday, bringing its total to 1,941. It also added more than 7,900 newly confirmed infections, for a total of 83,712.
Trump, though, also seemed to turn his attention to a separate matter Wednesday. At the beginning of his regular coronavirus briefing, the president — alongside his attorney general, defense secretary and other officials — announced he was expanding counternarcotics operations in the Western Hemisphere and sending more ships and planes to the U.S. Southern Command.
The federal government’s supply of masks, gloves and gowns is nearly gone.
The federal government has nearly emptied its emergency stockpile of protective medical supplies as state governors continue to plea for protective gear for desperate hospital workers, according to a senior administration official.
The official said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has delivered more than 11.6 million N95 masks, 5.2 million face shields, 22 million gloves and 7,140 ventilators, exhausting the emergency stockpile.
While there is no more personal protective equipment in the stockpile left over for the states, the senior official said the administration still has more than 9,400 ventilators ready to be deployed.
The dwindling resources have forced the federal government to compete with states and private companies for valuable medical gear across the world. Governors, meanwhile, have continued to try to find ways to scavenge medical supplies for hospital workers exposed to the worsening pandemic.
“Really, the only hope for a state at this point is the federal government’s capacity to deliver,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said Wednesday, going on to discuss the powers that the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law, gives the president to procure vital equipment.
Mr. Cuomo noted that while much of the discussion about the act had been about making ventilators, which are complex to build, it could also be used for other gear
“Look, you have a shortfall on gowns,” he said. “American companies can make gowns — they’re not like wedding gowns, they’re like paper gowns. Make the gowns, make the gloves, make the masks. You know, why are we running out of these basic supplies?”
The mayor warned that April would be bad. Now it’s here.
On Wednesday, with Mr. de Blasio’s crucial date just four days away and city data putting the number of virus-related deaths at 1,374, he went into detail about the supplies the city still needed to contend with the coming wave:
3.3 million N95 masks, which protect health care workers from exposure to the virus
2.1 million surgical masks
100,000 isolation gowns
400 additional ventilators
To help ensure that supplies go where they are needed, Mr. de Blasio said that James P. O’Neill, the former police commissioner who is now an executive with Visa, was returning to oversee operations and logistics related to the virus outbreak.
Mr. de Blasio said New York would continue to have a great need for supplies well after Sunday. By the end of April, he estimated, the health care system would need 65,000 additional hospital beds to accommodate new virus patients, as well as the people to staff them.
To meet the expected demand, the city’s public hospital system plans to convert all of its facilities to intensive care units, officials said, adding that supplies and personnel were crucial to increasing the number of I.C.U. beds.
Patients who do not have the virus will be sent to large-scale temporary hospitals, like the one set up at the Javits Convention Center, or to hotels that are being converted into temporary medical facilities. So far, the city had secured 10,000 beds from 20 hotels, officials said.
“This goal is within reach,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It’s going to take a herculean effort, but I’m confident it can be reached.”
The numbers of people hospitalized, on ventilators, testing positive or dead of the virus have all begun to increase a little more slowly in recent days. But they were still increasing every day, and officials expected it would be several weeks before the virus began to ebb.
The governor said all city playgrounds would close.
At his briefing, Mr. Cuomo expressed frustration with those who continued to ignore social-distancing guidelines in New York City.
He insisted that the city’s police officers had “to get more aggressive” in enforcing the rules. Mr. Cuomo said that he was prepared to legally require social distancing if necessary, but that it was absurd that even had to consider that.
“How reckless and irresponsible and selfish for people not to do it on their own,” he said. “I mean what else do you have to know? What else do you have to hear? Who else has to die for you to understand you have a responsibility in this?”
As a start, he said, all of the city’s playgrounds would be shut down.
More people in homeless shelters are getting the virus.
Coronavirus continues to spread through New York City’s homeless shelters, where it has now infected over 120 people and killed five men, city officials said Wednesday.
People have tested positive in 68 different shelters. The virus has circulated most quickly in shelters for single adults, where dormitory-style quarters and shared bathrooms leave little room for distancing.
The city has set up four locations to isolate sick people and those who have been exposed to them. As of Tuesday, 190 people were at those locations and 38 people were in the hospital. Another 13 living on the street or in unstable housing had tested positive.
The federal government has a ventilator stockpile, with one hitch: Thousands do not work.
President Trump has repeatedly assured Americans that the federal government is holding 10,000 ventilators in reserve to ship to the hardest-hit hospitals around the nation as they struggle to keep the most critically ill patients alive.
But what federal officials have neglected to mention is that thousands more of the lifesaving devices are unavailable, after the contract to maintain the government’s stockpile lapsed late last summer, and a contracting dispute meant that a new firm did not begin its work until late January. By then, the coronavirus crisis was already underway.
The revelation came in response to inquiries to the Department of Health and Human Services after state officials reported that some of the ventilators they received were not operational, stoking speculation that the administration had not kept up with the task of maintaining the stockpile.
Democrats seek Sept. 11-style commission on Trump’s coronavirus response.
House Democrats on Wednesday called for the creation of an independent panel to investigate the Trump administration’s response to the novel coronavirus — once the pandemic subsides.
The panel would be akin to the one that was formed to examine the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2011.
“It is clear that we, as a nation, are at another inflection point,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement announcing he had introduced a bill to form a coronavirus commission. “Americans today will again demand a full accounting of how prepared we were and how we responded to this global public health emergency. Americans will need answers on how our government can work better to prevent a similar crisis from happening again.”
Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that he was also drafting legislation modeled to create a 9/11-style commission that would investigate once the country had moved past the coronavirus.”
“After Pearl Harbor and 9/11, we looked at what went wrong to learn from our mistakes,” Mr. Schiff wrote on Twitter. “Once we’ve recovered, we need a nonpartisan commission to review our response and how we can better prepare for the next pandemic.”
The mayor of Los Angeles asks all residents to cover their faces when in public.
Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles on Wednesday urged all the city’s residents to use homemade face coverings when in public or interacting in public.
“This isn’t an excuse to suddenly all go out,” he said during a news conference, “but when you have to go out, we are recommending that we use nonmedical grade masks, or facial coverings.”
Mr. Garcetti stressed that Angelinos use cloth face coverings, and not surgical and N95 masks, which are reserved for first-responders and medical workers. “This could save or cost a doctor or nurse their life, so we need to protect them,” he said.
The directive, he said, was in line with guidance from Gov. Gavin Newsom and Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the director of Los Angeles County’s Public Health Department.
In a tweet, Mr. Garcetti also referred to new data that suggests many who are infected are not symptomatic.
As of Wednesday, California had 9,599 cases of coronavirus and 206 deaths. Los Angeles County had 3,518 cases and 65 deaths.
