U.S. death toll eclipses China’s as reinforcements head to NYC
NEW YORK » The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus climbed past 3,800 Tuesday, eclipsing China’s official count, as hard-hit New York City rushed to bring in more medical professionals and ambulances and parked refrigerated morgue trucks on the streets to collect the dead.
Public health experts at a briefing with President Donald Trump projected that the number of U.S. deaths could range from
100,000 to 240,000 even if Americans continue to stay home and limit contact with others. They said they hope the figure won’t soar that high if everyone does their part to prevent the virus from spreading.
“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” said Trump, who has extended social distancing guidelines to April 30. “We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks.”
Elsewhere around the world, hard-hit Italy reported that the infection rate appears to be leveling off and new cases could start declining, but that the crisis is far from over. Spain struggled to fend off the collapse of its hospital system. Vladimir Putin’s Russia moved to crack down on quarantine violations and “fake news” about the outbreak. And China edged closer to normal as stores in the epicenter city of Wuhan began reopening.
Worldwide, more than
850,000 people have been infected and over 42,000 have died, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Italy and Spain accounted for half the deaths, while the U.S. had over 185,000 infections, with more dead than China’s official toll of about
3,300.
New York was the nation’s deadliest hot spot, with about 1,550 deaths statewide, most of them in New York City, which braced for things to get much worse in the coming weeks.
At Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, critically ill COVID-19 patients are filling intensive care units, surgical floors and operating rooms and waiting in the emergency room for beds to become available, said Dr. Eric Wei of the city’s hospital agency.
“I’ve practiced emergency medicine for a long time, and I’m seeing things that I never could have imagined in terms of the things this virus can do to all ages, including people who were previously healthy,” he said.
A 1,000-bed emergency hospital set up at the mammoth Javits Convention Center began taking noncoronavirus patients to help relieve the city’s overwhelmed health system. A Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds was expected to begin accepting patients Tuesday.
The indoor tennis center that is the site of the U.S. Open tournament is being turned into a hospital as well.
The city also worked to bring in 250 out-of-town ambulances and 500 paramedics to deal with a crush of emergency calls. The fire commissioner said ambulances are responding to double their normal daily total of 3,000 calls to 911.
A five-day stretch last week was the busiest in the history of the city’s emergency services operation.
In addition, New York authorities sought to bring on more volunteer health care professionals and hoped to have them on board by Thursday. Nearly 80,000 former nurses, doctors and others are said to be stepping forward, and the governor said officials are doing background checks and otherwise making sure they are fit for duty.
Around the city, workers in protective gear have been seen putting bodies of victims into refrigerated trailers. At some hospitals, like Lenox Hill in Manhattan, the trucks are parked on streets, along sidewalks and in front of apartments. Cars and buses passed by as corpses were loaded by forklift at Brooklyn Hospital Center. People captured some of the scenes by cellphone.
“Nobody can even believe it,” Trump said about watching video footage from Elmhurst hospital in New York. “I watched the doctors and the nurses walking into that hospital this morning. It’s like military people going into battle, going into war.”
The crisis hit close to home for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who reported tearyeyed that his brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, was infected.
The 49-year-old TV newsman tweeted that he has suffered from fever, chills and shortness of breath and will be doing his shows from his basement, where he has quarantined.
“Luckily we caught it early enough,” Gov. Cuomo said. “But it’s my family, it’s your family, it’s all of our families. But this virus is that insidious, and we must keep that all in mind.”
Figures on deaths and infections around the world are supplied by government health authorities and compiled by Johns Hopkins.
But the numbers are regarded with skepticism by public health experts because of different counting practices, a lack of testing in places, the numerous mild cases that have been missed, and perhaps government efforts to downplay the severity of the crisis.