Trump says he might lock down New York
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he might prohibit travel in and out of the New York area to limit the spread of the coronavirus from its US epicenter, as healthcare workers in the hard-hit region said they did not have enough masks and medical equipment.
With the number of known cases soaring past 115,000, the highest tally in the world, Trump said he might impose a quarantine on New York, New Jersey and parts of Connecticut to protect other states that have yet to bear the brunt.
“They’re having problems down in Florida. A lot of New Yorkers are going down. We don’t want that,” Trump told reporters.
Since the virus first appeared in the United States in late January, Trump has vacillated between playing down the risks of infection and urging Americans to take steps to slow its spread.
He also appeared to soften his previous comments calling for the US economy to be reopened by mid-April. “We’ll see what happens,” he said.
It was not clear whether Trump would be able to block road, air and sea travel out of a region that serves as the economic engine of the eastern US, accounting for 10% of the population and 12% of GDP.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he had no details on a possible quarantine order.
“I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know how that would be legally enforceable, and from a medical point of view I don’t know what you would be accomplishing,” Cuomo told reporters. “I don’t even like the sound of it.”
New coronavirus cases in China leveled off after the government imposed a strict lockdown of Wuhan, the epicenter of the disease.
The body count continues to climb in Italy, where authorities have blocked travel across the country and prevented people from leaving their homes for all but essential reasons.
In the US, the number of cases stood at 115,842 on Saturday afternoon with at least 1,929 deaths, according to a Reuters tally. The number of cases in the US eclipsed those of China and Italy on Thursday.
Even if it were possible, a
New York-area lockdown might come too late for the rest of the country.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Southern California was on track to match New York City’s infection figures in the next week.
In New Orleans, where Mardi Gras celebrations late last month fueled an outbreak, the number of coronavirus patients “have been staggering,” said Sophia Thomas, a nurse practitioner at DePaul Community Health Center.
American healthcare workers are appealing for more protective gear and equipment as a surge in patients pushes hospitals to their limits.
On Saturday, nurses protested outside the Jacobi
Medical Center in New York, saying supervisors asked them to reuse their masks, putting their own health at risk.
“The masks are supposed to be one-time use,” one nurse said, according to videos posted online.
One medical trainee at New York Presbyterian Hospital said they were given just one mask.
“It’s not the people who are making these decisions that go into the patients’ rooms,” said the trainee, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Doctors are also especially concerned about a shortage of ventilators, machines that help patients breathe and are widely needed for those suffering from COVID-19, the pneumonia-like respiratory ailment caused by the highly contagious novel coronavirus.
Hospitals have also sounded the alarm about scarcities of drugs, oxygen tanks and trained staff.
Dr. Alexander Salerno of Salerno Medical Associates in northern New Jersey said he picked up masks and other equipment at an abandoned warehouse, paying $17,000 for gear that should have cost about $2,500.
“You don’t get any names. You get just phone numbers to text,” Salerno said. “And so you agree to a term. You wire the money to a bank account. They give you a time and an address to come to.”
Nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York said they were hiding supplies that are
prone to pilfering.
“Masks disappear,” nurse Diana Torres said. “We hide it all in drawers in front of the nurses’ station.”
In Michigan, equipment shortages could soon lead to loss of life, one emergency-room doctor warned.
“We have hospital systems
here in the Detroit area that are getting to the end of their supply of ventilators and have to start telling families they can’t save their loved ones because they don’t have enough equipment,” the physician, Dr. Rob Davidson, said in a video posted on Twitter.