Is the US becoming the new Italy?
WASHINGTON – In the past two weeks, the US has seen a spike in coronavirus cases, and is now on track to pass Italy by the end of Thursday, possibly even passing China and becoming the nation with the largest number of confirmed cases.
Even when taking into account that the numbers reported by the Chinese government can’t be trusted, the US is still currently facing the most rapid spread of the virus anywhere on earth.
But while the outbreak in China was mostly in one province, the US is now seeing multiple “hot spots” of the outbreak in New York, New Jersey, California, Washington, and Florida.
Is the US about to face the same grim reality that doctors in Lombardy have been struggling with this past month?
“We have way too many patients and not enough resources to deal with the influx that is coming in,” a doctor at NYU Bellevue hospital who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive details told The Jerusalem Post. “We are not set up
those currently in use, assuming they are all in working order.”
Israel is trying to manufacture ventilators locally with the goal of having 3,000 of them, Bar Siman Tov said.
Whether that number will be enough to handle the expected number of patients in critical condition was unclear from the discussion. To ensure the health system does not collapse under the pressure, Bar Siman Tov said the aim is to “flatten the curve” and prevent a sharp peak of cases by spreading out the rate of infection over a longer period of time.
“We want to take hard steps now to allow us some degree of freedom after Passover to try to free the economy a little in a managed and controlled way... We especially want to reduce the number of patients who are suffering and conquer the illness significantly,” he said. “We are very scared of what will happen on Passover and Ramadan, when people come out and meet each other. This is the most dangerous thing there is. The next two weeks are critical for our success against the disease.”
As of Thursday at press time, Israel had 2,693 people who had been diagnosed with the virus, including 46 in serious condition. From March 20-25, the number of patients in serious condition more than doubled, the Knesset report showed.
“We are in a situation where the number of sick is doubling every three days,” Bar Siman Tov said. Israel will have about 200 severely ill patients within a week, he estimated.
“This is serious – a matter of days,” he said. “I don’t like the word lockdown, but we are close to a full closure.”
The economy is already flailing under the pressure of partial closure. The number of claimants for unemployment benefits has surpassed 880,000, including more than 720,000 applications since March 1. Some 90% of the new applicants are employees placed on unpaid leave.
The unemployment rate has risen from 4% before the crisis to 21.2% as of Thursday afternoon, the Israeli Employment Service reported.
“We are closely watching how the additional restrictions to combat the coronavirus