Nation braces for ‘peak death week’
N.Y. eyes burials in parks amid ‘peak death week’
WASHINGTON •Theunited States entered what an official called the “peak death week” of the coronavirus on Monday while a watchdog report said hospitals were struggling to maintain and expand capacity to care for infected patients.
The U.S. death toll, which topped 10,000 on Monday, was rapidly closing in on Italy and Spain, the countries with the most fatalities to date at nearly 16,000 and about 12,500 respectively, according to a Reuters tally of official data.
“It’s going to be the peak hospitalization, peak ICU week and unfortunately, peak death week,” Admiral Brett Giroir, a physician and member of the White House coronavirus task force, told ABC’S Good Morning America on Monday.
He raised particular alarm for the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and the city of Detroit.
Separately, on NBC’S Today Giroir said: “Whether you live in small town America or you live in the ‘Big Apple,’ everyone is susceptible to this and everyone needs to follow the precautions we’ve laid out.”
More than 90 per cent of Americans are under stay-athome orders issued by state governors while eight states still were holding out on imposing such restrictions.
Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that a shortage of medical professionals was replacing a lack of equipment as the city’s primary need, calling for an additional 45,000 clinical personnel for April.
“More and more, the challenge is going to be personnel,” de Blasio said. “We need these supplies, but we also need heroes to wear them.”
The city has reported more than 3,100 deaths, and may resort to temporarily burying the dead in an unspecified park, said Mark Levine, chair of the New York City Council health committee.
“Soon we’ll start ‘temporary interment’. This likely will be done by using a NYC park for burials (yes you read that right). Trenches will be dug for 10 caskets in a line,” Levine wrote on Twitter. “It will be done in a dignified, orderly — and temporary — manner. But it will be tough for Nyers to take.”
The pandemic was also taking a toll on the New York Police Department, which said 18.6 per cent of its uniformed workforce was out sick on Sunday.
Despite the grim warnings, at least one model offered hope that the death rate was slowing.
The University of Washington model, one of several cited by U.S. and some state officials, now projects U.S. deaths at 81,766 by Aug. 4, down about 12,000 from an earlier projection.
The model, which is frequently updated with new data, projects the peak need for hospital beds on April 15 and for daily deaths at 3,130 on April 16.