U.S. death toll tops China’s, reinforcements head to NYC
• Trump extends social-distancing timeline • Many states running out of ventilators • Italy sees COVID-19 infections levelling off
NEW YORK — The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus climbed past 3,600 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.
The crisis hit close to home for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who reported teary-eyed that his brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, was infected.
The governor pronounced the disaster unlike any other the city has weathered: “This is ongoing and the duration itself is debilitating and exhausting and depressing.”
Public health experts at a briefing with U.S. 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. “Were going to go through a very tough two weeks.”
Elsewhere around the world, hard-hit Italy reported that the infection rate appears to belevelling 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 epicentre city of Wuhan began reopening.
Worldwide, more than 800,000 people have been infected and more than 40,000 have died, according to a tally kept by Johns
Hopkins University. Italy and Spain accounted for half the deaths, while the U.S. had more than 180,000 infections, with more dead than China’s official toll of about 3,300.
New York was the U.S.’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.
A 1,000-bed emergency hospital set up at the mammoth Javits Convention Center began taking non-coronavirus patients to help relieve the city’s overwhelmed health system. A navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds that arrived on Monday was expected to begin accepting patients on Tuesday.
The indoor tennis centre 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 for disciplinary actions and otherwise making sure they are fit for duty.
Chris Cuomo, the 49-year-old TV newsman said on Twitter that he has suffered from fever, chills and shortness of breath and will be doing his shows from his basement, where he has quarantined himself.
He said he is worried about infecting his wife and children, but added: “We will all beat this by being smart and tough and united!”
“Luckily, we caught it early enough,” the governor 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.
For example, in Italy, where the death toll was put at about 12,400, the country’s emergency co-ordinator, Domenico Arcuri, acknowledged that officials don’t have a handle on how many people are dying at home or in nursing homes.
Still, there was a glimmer of hope there: Dr. Silvio Brusaferro, head of Italy’s institutes of health, said that three weeks into a nationwide lockdown, the hardest-hit country in Europe is seeing the rate of new infections level off.
“The curve suggests we are at the plateau,” he said. But “arriving at the plateau doesn’t mean we have conquered the peak and we’re done. It means now we should start to see the decline if we continue to place maximum attention on what we do every day.”
With the country’s health-care system buckling under the pressure, a field hospital, built in just 10 days, was unveiled at the Milan fairgrounds.
“We made a promise and we kept it,” said the head of the project, former civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso, who ended up catching the virus while on the job and had to work from his hospital bed.
In Russia, lawmakers approved harsher punishments, including prison sentences of several years, for violating quarantine rules and spreading misinformation. The chief doctor at Moscow’s top hospital for coronavirus patients said he tested positive, a week after shaking hands with Putin.
Spain reported more than 840 new deaths, pushing the toll above 8,000 and forcing Madrid to open a second temporary morgue after an ice rink pressed into service last week became overwhelmed.
Israel’s Defence Ministry said it has converted a missile-production facility into an assembly line for ventilators.
In the smouldering hot spot of Louisiana, the death toll climbed to 239. Louisiana and Michigan were running out of ventilators, despite promises by the White House of more equipment. Cuomo described the bidding for ventilators as like being “on eBay.”
Meanwhile, a senior military general said the Pentagon has not yet delivered any of the 2,000 ventilators it offered to the Department of Health and Human Services two weeks ago because HHS has asked it to wait while the agency determines where the devices should go.
In Florida, the Holland America cruise line pleaded with state officials to let two ships dock and carry off the sick and the dead. Dozens aboard have reported flulike symptoms, and four people have died.
But Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Fox News: “We cannot afford to have people who are not even Floridians dumped into South Florida using up those valuable resources.”
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause severe symptoms like pneumonia.
Among the few positive signs: In Britain, where the number of dead reached nearly 1,800, the medical director of the National Health Service’s operations in England said there is evidence that social distancing is working.