China sends 1,000 ventilators to help New York fight virus
NEW YORK — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday the Chinese government is facilitating a shipment of 1,000 donated ventilators to his state, highlighting the extreme measures leaders are taking in what has become a cutthroat scramble to independently secure enough lifesaving devices during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a sign of the disorganized response to the global crisis, Cuomo praised the Chinese government for its help in securing the shipment of the breathing machines that was scheduled to arrive at Kennedy Airport on Saturday, while acknowledging that the U.S. government’s stockpile of medical supplies would fall drastically short.
“We’re all in the same battle here,” Cuomo said, noting that the state of Oregon also volunteered to send 140 ventilators to New York. “And the battle is stopping the spread of the virus.”
The rush to secure supplies has prompted intense squabbling between the states and federal government at a moment the nation is facing one of its gravest emergencies. Leaders like Cuomo have been forced to go outside normal channels and work with authoritarian governments and private companies.
Trump said states are making inflated requests for medical supplies when the need isn’t there and suggested he had a hand in the ventilator shipment arriving from China to New York. Trump also said he’d like to hear a more resounding “thank you” from Cuomo for providing medical supplies and helping quickly to add hospital capacity. Cuomo acknowledged he asked the White House and others for help negotiating the ventilators.
“We have given the governor of New York more than anybody has ever been given in a long time,” Trump told reporters in Washington.
In addition to getting ventilators from China and Oregon, Cuomo ordered private hospitals in the state to redistribute breathing machines to those most in need.
“I want this all to be over,” Cuomo said, noting that while it’s been roughly 30 days since the state’s first case, “it feels like an entire lifetime.”
Trump said the federal government is setting up a 2,500-bed field hospital at New York’s Javits Convention Center that will be staffed by the military. He said similar hospital projects are being built in Louisiana and Dallas.
“There will be a lot of death, unfortunately, but a lot less death than if this wasn’t done,” Trump said. He later added that the federal government is “a backup … the greatest backup that ever existed for the states.”
In the U.S., the outbreak is deepening in other areas beyond New York. More than 400 people have died in Louisiana, and state authorities have been sprinting to find ventilators similar to New York. Michigan has more than 14,000 infections and 500 deaths, with Detroit being the state’s epicenter.
With the arrival of the weekend and spring weather, many Americans struggled to adhere to social distancing and stay-at-home orders that cover most of the country. The sheriff in San Diego issued about two dozen citations to people, saying violators were breaking the rules by having picnics near the beach.
Worldwide, confirmed infections rose past 1.1 million and deaths exceeded 63,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say both greatly under-count the true number of victims because of lack of testing, mild cases that were missed and governments that are underplaying the crisis.
At the same time, more than 233,000 people have recovered from the virus, which causes mild to moderate symptoms such as fever and cough in most patients, who recover within a few weeks.