Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Sunday offered a grim assessment of the coronavirus pandemic engulfing the state, as he reported that 237 people had died since the day before, the largest one-day increase since the coronavirus outbreak began.The number of coronavirus deaths in New York City increased by 161 from Saturday night to Sunday morning, pushing the statewide total to over 1,000 fatalities, according to the latest figures from the city and state, and county-level data compiled by The New York Times.
New York City has a one-week supply of medical supplies to care for any New Yorker who is sick, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday.
“We have enough supplies to get to a week from today, with the exception of ventilators, we’re going to need at least several hundred more ventilators very quickly,” Mr. de Blasio said in an appearance Sunday morning on CNN. “We are going to need a reinforcement.’’
And the projections, he added, suggests that the crisis facing New York could grow even worse.
“I don’t think there’s any way to look at those numbers,” Mr. Cuomo said, “without seeing thousands of people pass away.”
The total number of deaths in the state stood at 965 on Sunday morning, before New York City reported its most recent count. The number of NYC cases jumped to nearly 33,500, from about 30,000 the day before.
The number of NYS confirmed cases jumped by 7,200 in one day, putting the total of confirmed cases at 59,513 cases as of Sunday. More than half of the cases, or 33,768, are in New York City, according to the latest figures from the city and state.
About 8,500 people are currently hospitalized, an increase of 16 percent from Saturday to Sunday. Of those, 2,037 are in intensive care units, which are equipped with ventilators.
“People asked ‘when is this over?,’” Mr. Cuomo said. “When they come up with an inexpensive home test or point of care test that can be brought to volume.”
The governor extended his order for all nonessential workers to stay home until April 15.
Mr. Cuomo said he would ask Mayor Bill de Blasio to devise a plan for the city’s 11 public hospitals to coordinate how patients and resources are distributed. He also wants public and private hospitals to work together throughout the state. “There is an artificial wall between those two systems right now. That wall has to come down,” Mr. Cuomo said.
More than 76,000 health care workers, many of them retirees, have volunteered to work in hospitals should the facilities become strained.
The city will add more emergency personnel, more ambulances and more shifts in response to the record number of calls to 911, Mr. de Blastio said.
“This is unprecedented,’’ he said. “We’ve never seen our E.M.S. system get this many calls, ever.”
Mr. de Blasio said the city has also sent 169 additional health care workers to Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, which is reeling from the number of patients it is treating.
“This is going to an extraordinarily tough next few weeks, but we will keep sending more and more reinforcements,” Mr. de Blasio said.
The Mayor emphasized that playgrounds in New York City would stay open, but that the police would step up its enforcement of social distancing rules.
“If someone is told by an officer, disperse, keep moving, you’re not distanced, and they don’t follow the direct instruction of the officer,’’ he said, “I’m comfortable at this point that they will be fined.”
Mr. Cuomo said he supported the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s travel advisory for New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, urging residents to refrain from nonessential domestic travel for 14 days. “It’s nothing we haven’t been doing,” Mr. Cuomo said.
Some good news: The Westchester County man who was New York’s second confirmed case, bringing attention to a cluster of cases in New Rochelle, has been discharged from the hospital, Mr. Cuomo said.
“Our front line health care workers,” Mr. de Blasio said, “are giving their all, they’re in harm’s way. And, you know, we need to get them relief. We need to get them support and protection, but also relief. They can’t keep up at this pace.’’
The White House official said on Sunday that an aircraft carrying gloves, masks, gowns and other medical supplies from Shanghai arrived on Sunday morning at Kennedy International Airport in New York, the first in a series of roughly 20 flights that officials say will funnel much-needed goods to the United States by early April.
The plane carried 130,000 N-95 masks, nearly 1.8 million surgical masks and gowns, more than 10 million gloves and more than 70,000 thermometers.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will provide the majority of the supplies to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, with the rest going to nursing homes in the region and other high-risk areas across the country, a White House spokesman said.
Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the impact the shipment would have on the availability of medical supplies in the city and state.
Trump says keeping US Covid-19 deaths to 100,000 would be a ‘very good job’
Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, the US president claimed that, if his administration keeps the death toll to 100,000, it will have done “a very good job” – a startling shift from his optimistic predictions of a few days ago when he said he hoped to restart the economy by Easter.
Trump also undermined his plea for unity by uttering falsehoods, verbally abusing reporters and making incendiary allegations that implied health care workers were stealing masks, without providing evidence.
The extended deadline marked a humiliating retreat for the president who, having squandered six precious weeks at the start of the pandemic, more recently complained that the cure is worse than the problem and floated Easter Sunday as a “beautiful timeline” for reopening big swathes of the country.
A field hospital is growing in Central Park.
It was a jarring scene — a giant field hospital rising in the middle of one of New York City’s most iconic spots.
But the coronavirus virus has upended life in New York City in many ways. Now Central Park has been chosen as a location for one of several temporary hospitals being erected to help hospitals inundated with coronavirus patients.The field hospital in the park, which is being set up by the Mt. Sinai hospital system, will have 68 beds and is expected to be operational by Tuesday,
For the first time New York State lawmakers choose to vote remotely.
Facing a looming deadline to pass a budget by April 1, lawmakers began to convene in the Albany on Sunday, with the Assembly also expected to pass measures to limit the number of people in the chamber.
As coronavirus cases explode in Iran, U.S. sanctions hinder its access to drugs and medical equipment.
Sweeping U.S. sanctions are hampering Iranian efforts to import medicine and other medical supplies to confront one of the largest coronavirus outbreaks in the world, health workers and sanctions experts say.
The broad U.S. restrictions on Iran’s banking system and the embargo on its oil exports have limited Tehran’s ability to finance and purchase essential items from abroad, including drugs as well as the raw materials and equipment needed to manufacture medicines domestically.
The Trump administration has also reduced the number of licenses it grants to companies for certain medical exports to Iran, according to quarterly reports from a U.S. Treasury Department enforcement agency. The list of items requiring special authorization includes oxygen generators, full-face respirator masks and thermal imaging equipment, all of which are needed to treat patients and keep medical workers safe, doctors say.
The tough measures are part of a U.S. “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran, adopted by the Trump administration after it unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal Iran had signed with world powers.
Iranian medical workers and global public health experts say it is not possible to determine exactly how much U.S. sanctions have affected Iran’s capacity to fight a virus that by official counts has infected more than 35,000 Iranians and killed at least 2,500 — some estimates put the toll far higher — while spawning outbreaks in other countries. But they say it is clear that the Iranian health-care system is being deprived of equipment necessary to save lives and prevent wider infection.
“There are a lot of shortages now. . . . [Hospitals] do not have enough diagnostic kits or good quality scanners, and there is also a shortage of masks,” said Nouradin Pirmoazen, a thoracic surgeon and former lawmaker in Iran.
President Trump took to Twitter Sunday afternoon to tout the ratings of his news conferences, claiming without evidence that mainstream media are going “CRAZY” because of his popularity on television.
“Because the ‘Ratings’ of my News Conferences etc. are so high, ‘Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers’ according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY,” Trump tweeted. “‘Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him.’ said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 P.M.!”
The president seemed to be referring to a New York Times article that noted the now-daily news briefings provided by Trump and the coronavirus task force have drawn an average audience of 8.5 million people on cable news, with viewership last Monday reaching nearly 12.2 million. Those numbers are roughly on par with audiences for “The Bachelor” season finale and “Monday Night Football,” respectively, according to the Times.
Some experts and media figures have warned against airing the briefings because of Trump’s frequent statements playing down the severity of the pandemic or giving viewers incorrect information.
Singer John Prine Hospitalized, in Critical Condition Following Coronavirus Symptoms
Americana legend John Prine has been hospitalized since Thursday after experiencing a sudden onset of COVID-19 symptoms.
A cancer survivor, the singer-songwriter’s team revealed the news Sunday afternoon with a post on social media, explaining that his “situation is critical.”
"After a sudden onset of COVID-19 symptoms, John was hospitalized on Thursday (3/26)," the post says. "He was intubated Saturday evening, and continues to receive care, but his situation is critical.
"This is hard news for us to share," the message continues. "But so many of you have loved and supported John over the years, we wanted to let you know and give you the chance to send on more of that love and support now. And know that we love you, and John loves you."