States push forward in virus battle
New York state officials might establish temporary hospitals on college campuses and in New York City’s main convention center in preparation for a possible onslaught of coronavirus patients, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday.
Cuomo said the government is seeking to increase hospital bed capacity by 50% to 25,000 more beds. Officials have also found 2 million protective masks to send to hot spots.
New York is reviewing four possible locations for temporary hospitals, which would be operated by the Army Corps of Engineers. Cuomo also said 1 million N-95 masks are being sent to New York City on Saturday, with another 500,000 masks going to Long Island. He is also trying to find a supplier for more gowns, and clothing companies are converting to make masks.
“Everything that can be done is being done,” Cuomo said, adding, “We are literally scouring the globe looking for medical supplies.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy tweeted Saturday that he ordered residents to stay home and nonessential retail businesses to close by 9 p.m. Saturday. He also said all gatherings are canceled.
“I take personal responsibility for the public health and safety of New Jersey,” Murphy tweeted. “If you are unhappy about our aggressive social distancing measures, I’m sorry. But your safety is my highest priority.”
California started restricting residents Friday, and New York and Illinois were to follow this weekend. Connecticut and Oregon were preparing to follow.
On Saturday, Trump opened the daily virus briefing with a roll call of his administration’s accomplishments, a week-in-review meant to rebut criticism that the White House was moving too slowly to combat the crisis. He also pushed back against accusations that he was sluggish to act for fear of upsetting China, though he told aides last month that he had not wanted to alienate Beijing by criticizing its secretive handling of the initial outbreak.
But mixed, vague messaging still ruled the briefing.
Hospitals across the nation, facing an expected surge of coronavirus patients, reported a dire shortage of masks and ventilators. Vice President Mike Pence said the government is completing a half-billion-dollar order for masks, but none of the government officials at the briefing could suggest when they would reach medical facilities, a moment of confusion that caused Trump to grow visibly frustrated.
Health officials again warned Americans that the number of coronavirus cases would continue to increase in part as testing grew more widespread. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, promised that the administration’s measures were slowing the spread – though how was not easily quantified.
Fauci also, again, tried not to overpromise the effectiveness or speed of medication that could possibly be used to treat the virus. After Trump had exited the briefing room, he answered a question about Trump’s tweet about the drugs by saying, “I’m not totally sure what the president was referring to.”
Trump also sowed further confusion about whether he is using the powers of the Defense Production Act to force American businesses to manufacture needed medical supplies. Though he invoked it this week, he said Saturday that he has not yet needed to utilize it to compel businesses to act, despite the pronounced supply shortage.
Pence provided an update on a member of his staff who had tested positive for the new coronavirus. The staffer was doing well, Pence said.
The vice president added that, out of abundance of caution, he and his wife, Karen, would be tested for the virus later Saturday. Yet Pence still stood just a few feet from Trump on the White House briefing room podium.
In Spain, almost a week into tight restrictions on movement and the closure of most shops, police intensified efforts to enforce confinement rules with fines and extra patrols to stop city-dwellers with second homes in the country from leaving town for the weekend.
Spain has the third-highest number of infections worldwide. On Saturday it reported about 5,000 new cases in the past day. The death toll rose almost to 1,400, up from about 1,000 on Friday.
As hospitals and nursing homes buckle under the burden of the virus outbreak, Spanish health authorities said some intensive care units in the hardest-hit areas are close to their limit, and warned that they expect infections to continue to rise before measures to reverse the trend have an effect.
The army was building a field hospital with 5,500 beds in a convention center in Madrid, where hotels are also being turned into wards for virus patients without serious breathing problems.
Dr. Olga Meridiano, who treated victims of a 2004 jihadist bomb attack in Madrid that killed nearly 200 people and wounded many more, said nothing prepared her for the national health tragedy that Spain is now enduring.
“I have been through many situations,” she said from the central city of Guadalajara, where she works in a public hospital. “But nothing is like this.”
“If we keep seeing daily increases of 23%, this cannot be withstood much longer,” Meridiano said. “We are doubling up on our shifts. We have strategies to hang in there this week, but beyond that we need the situation to improve because we professionals are bearing a lot of pressure, including emotional.”
Officials in many countries are desperate to prevent, or at least limit, a repeat of what has happened in China and southern Europe. The coronavirus outbreak overwhelmed medical services in the central Chinese city of Wuhan earlier this year and is pushing them to the limit in Italy, Spain and France.
Italy’s grim tally of coronavirus cases and deaths continues to soar, with officials on Saturday announcing new dayto-day highs: 793 dead and 6,557 cases.
More than 60% of the latest deaths occurred in the northern region of Lombardy, whose hospitals have been reeling under a staggering case load that has left intensive care beds hard to find and respirators in dire supply. The new increases come nearly two weeks into a national lockdown in a desperate bid to contain the contagion.
Officials said that on Sunday a team of 65 Cuban doctors and nurses, with experience in battling Ebola outbreaks, will arrive in northern Italy to help in the hard-hit Lombardy town of Cremona.
Italian health officials realize they need to shorten the time between emergence of symptoms and diagnosis, said Silvio Brusaferro, the head of the national Superior Health Institute. Currently that lag is about five days, he said.
The surging case numbers have frustrated health officials. Statements by authorities earlier on in the outbreak had raised hopes that new infections might soon start dropping off.
Health Minister Roberto Speranza called for a “great alliance” between citizens and institutions, saying “what counts more is the behavior of every individual.” Giuseppe Sala, mayor of Milan, capital of the hardest-stricken region of Lombardy, tried to rally the city’s 1.4 million citizens, tweeting that “by now, we have understood, this is a marathon, not a sprint.”
China has been sending aid to several European countries, promoting its expertise and experience gained from fighting the outbreak at home. An Air China flight carrying 18 tons of medical supplies including hundreds of thousands of surgical and protection masks landed in the Greek capital, Athens, Saturday morning.
As the pandemic has eased in Asia, China and other parts of the region are now trying to avoid importing cases from Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere.
China reported Saturday that its mainland had no new home-grown cases of the disease for the third straight day, but 41 imported ones in the previous 24-hour period.