Growing need for hospital beds, supplies
MINNEAPOLIS » The coronavirus pandemic took an increasingly bleak toll Saturday in the U.S. and Europe, producing staggering caseloads in New York and Italy and setting off a desperate scramble to set up thousands of additional hospital beds as the disease notched another grim advance.
Italy, at the heart of Europe’s rampaging outbreak, announced nearly 800 new deaths and 6,600 new cases — its biggest day-to-day increase yet. In New York, state officials sought out desperately needed medical supplies and hospital beds as confirmed coronavirus cases soared above 10,000 statewide, with 56 deaths.
“Everything that can be done is being done,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, adding, “We are literally scouring the globe looking for medical supplies.”
Across the world, streets, squares and highways in major cities were deserted as curfews and lockdowns multiplied to try to stop the spread of COVID-19. In the U.S., New Jersey and St. Louis were added to a growing list of areas where residents were ordered to stay home. Health care workers from Oklahoma City to Minneapolis sought donations of protective equipment. Staff at a Detroit hospital began creating homemade face masks for workers. Even rural hospitals were strained as people increasingly felt the pandemic closing in.
In the farming community of Vidalia, Georgia, Dr. Robert Wagner said medical staffers at his emergency room are wearing face masks for their entire 12-hour shifts and changing in and out of full protective gear every time they see people considered a potential coronavirus case — all while dealing with a regular flow of patients injured in car crashes and suffering chest pains or other maladies.
They are testing an increasing number of patients for the virus and worried that the 50-bed Meadows Regional Medical Center could eventually become overwhelmed.
“There’s definitely this underlying fear in the community. You can see it,” he said.
In Washington, negotiators from Congress and the White House resumed top-level talks on a ballooning $1 trillion-plus economic rescue package, urged by President Donald Trump to strike a deal to steady a nation thoroughly upended by the coronavirus pandemic. Trump continued to strike a confident tone about the nation’s ability to defeat the pandemic soon, even as health leaders nationwide acknowledged that the U.S. is nowhere near the peak for the outbreak.
“We are going to be celebrating a great victory in the not too distant future,” he said.
The contagion is starting to be felt in U.S. cities far from major metropolitan areas, including places that have resisted drastic shutdown measures. About 150 countries now have confirmed cases, and deaths have been reported in more than 30 American states. There are now more than 300,000 confirmed cases worldwide, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University.
New hot spots are surfacing by the day. Among the new concerns: an outbreak at a nursing home in Ohio, an outbreak in New Orleans that alarmed state leaders and two new deaths in Kansas, where a top health official said the supply of testing kits won’t last through the weekend.
Debbie Velarde is selfisolated at her home in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, Colorado, after learning that a woman she trained during a work trip in Phoenix in early March had tested positive and was hospitalized on a respirator. Velarde then came down with a fever and cough and lost her job, and is waiting to hear back if she tested positive for COVID-19.
“I couldn’t go back to work even if I was well because the mall where my shop is has since closed,” said Velarde. “We were told to apply for unemployment.”
In Nebraska, 81 counties are without intensive-care beds, and 28 of the most rural counties have no hospital at all. In western Minnesota, five health care organizations were teaming up to convert part of a former prison into a center to care for coronavirus patients.
The shortage of medical equipment and protective gear was a concern in major cities too. Supplies, including protective gear, respirators and hand sanitizer, were dwindling.
New Hampshire’s largest hospital, Dartmouthhitchcock Medical center, encouraged volunteers to sew face masks for patients, visitors and staff so medical-grade protective equipment could be conserved for health care workers.
Integris Health, in Oklahoma, was asking the public to donate masks, hand sanitizers, disposable gloves and other supplies.
Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, tested negative for the coronavirus, his press secretary tweeted.
They were tested after a member of his staff tested positive.