New York could be two weeks from seeing 40,000 in intensive care.
New York — Gov. Andrew Cuomo sounded his most dire warning yet about the coronavirus pandemic Tuesday, saying the infection rate in New York is accelerating and the state could be as close as two weeks away from a crisis that sees 40,000 people in intensive care.
Such a surge would overwhelm hospitals, which now have just 3,000 intensive care unit beds statewide.
The rate of new infections, Cuomo said, is doubling about every three days. While officials once projected the peak in New York would come in early May, they now say it could come in two to three weeks.
“We are not slowing it. And it is accelerating on its own,” he said during a briefing at the
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. “One of the forecasters said to me we were looking at a freight train coming across the country. We’re now looking at a bullet train.”
New York officials have been racing to essentially double their hospital capacity to up to 110,000 beds. Cuomo now said there could be a peak need of 140,000 beds.
There were more than 25,000 positive cases in New York state and at least 210 deaths, according to state figures. Most of the cases and deaths have been in New York City, an emerging worldwide hot spot in the outbreak.
White House officials urged people who have left New York City amid the outbreak to self-quarantine for 14 days after their departure because of the widespread rate of infection.
New York officials are planning to add at least 1,000 temporary hospital beds at the Javits Center for nonCOVID-19 patients and thousands of beds elsewhere. But Cuomo said “they’re nowhere near” the number that will be needed. The state also faces shortages of ventilators and protective equipment for medical workers.
Wanted: ventilators
New York has 7,000 ventilators, the breathing machines that can keep COVID-19 patients alive, and Cuomo says the city needs 20,000 of them in a matter of weeks.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said 4,000 ventilators were coming from the federal government in the next two days, with half going to the city.
But Cuomo said many more were needed, and he called Tuesday for a national push to send all available ventilators to New York immediately.
After the expected surge of patients in the state passes, those ventilators could then be redeployed to the next hot spot.
“I will take personal responsibility for transporting the 20,000 ventilators anywhere in this country that they want, once we are past our apex,” Cuomo said. “But don’t leave them sitting in a stockpile.”
Peter Pitts, a former associate commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration and president of the New Yorkbased Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, said that ventilators — about the size of two old VCR machines — are certainly portable. But he said there would have to be regional or national coordination of such a surge.
Dr. Nicholas Hill, chief of pulmonary and critical care at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, said he was skeptical anyone with ventilators would be willing to give them up.
Asked if Tufts would temporarily lend out ventilators to New York, he responded succinctly, “Hell, no.”
“If we knew with certainty we could get them back when a spike was coming, I might be willing to talk more,” he said. “But no one is going to be able to guarantee that.”