China offering help in NYC virus battle
NEW YORK governor Andrew Cuomo says China is facilitating a shipment of 1,000 donated ventilators to his state, in another example of the extreme measures being taken in what is now a scramble to source lifesaving devices in the coronavirus pandemic.
In a sign of the disorganised response in the US to the global crisis, Mr Cuomo praised the Chinese government for its help in securing the breathing machines.
Noting the state of Oregon had also volunteered to send 140 ventilators to New York, Mr Cuomo also acknowledged the US government’s stockpile of medical supplies would fall drastically short of requirements. “We’re all in the same battle here,” Mr Cuomo said. “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, with state leaders forced to go outside normal channels to source supplies.
President Donald Trump told reporters on Saturday states were making inflated requests for medical supplies when the need was not there.
He also suggested he played a role in the ventilator shipment arriving from China to New York, and said he would like to hear a more resounding “thank you” from Mr Cuomo.
“We have given the governor of New York more than anybody has ever been given in a long time,” Mr
Trump told reporters in Washington.
While the state of Massachusetts used the New England Patriots NFL team’s plane to transport more than a million masks from China, Russia has also sent medical equipment to the US.
The number of people infected in the US has exceeded 300,000, with the death toll climbing past 8,400.
More than 3,500 of those deaths have been in New York state, including more than 1,900 in New York City.
In addition to accessing ventilators from China and Oregon, Mr Cuomo ordered private hospitals in the state to redistribute breathing machines to those most in need.
“I want this all to be over,” Mr Cuomo said, noting that while it had been roughly 30 days since the state’s first case, “it feels like an entire lifetime.”
Mr Trump highlighted that the federal government was setting up a 2,500-bed field hospital at New York’s Javits Convention Centre that would be staffed by the military. Similar hospital projects were 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,” Mr Trump said, adding the federal government was “a backup ... the greatest backup that ever existed for the states.”
As the number of people infected has grown to more than 1.1 million worldwide, health care systems are straining under the surge of patients.