San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
SEARCH FOR SUPPLIES GROWS AS CASES SOAR
■ N.Y. state reports thousands more confirmed virus infections ■ Hard-hit Italy announces biggest one-day rise in deaths, cases ■ Areas limiting testing to health workers, hospitalized patients ■ San Diego County count increases to 159 confirmed cases
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 from about 7,000 Friday to more than 11,000 statewide Saturday, with 56 deaths.
At least 38 of the new cases were in New York City jails: 12 Department of Correction employees, five Correctional Health Services employees, and 21 inmates have tested positive for the virus.
“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 Washington, negotiations between Congress and the White House pushed into the night Saturday on a ballooning $1 trillion-plus economic rescue package, urged by President Donald Trump to strike a deal to steady a nation upended by the coronavirus pandemic.
All sides indicated a deal is within reach. Negotiations are focused on providing direct relief to Americans, with one-time checks of $1,200, as well as ongoing payroll support and enhanced unemployment benefits for the newly out of work.
Talks also narrowed on a so-called Marshall Plan for hospitals as well as industry loans to airlines and others all but grounded by the virus outbreak and national shutdown. The post-world War II Marshall Plan helped to rebuild Western Europe.
Officials put the price tag at nearly $1.4 trillion and said that with other measures from the Federal Reserve it could pump $2 trillion into the U.S. economy. No announcement was expected until at least today. The Senate’s goal is to hold an initial vote today and win Senate passage on Monday.
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.
With more than 24,000 cases confirmed in the U.S. and deaths reported in more than 30 states, the contagion is starting to be felt in cities far from major metropolitan areas, including places that have resisted drastic shutdown measures. About 150 countries now have confirmed cases, and there are more than 300,000 confirmed cases worldwide, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University.
New hot spots are surfacing. 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 health official said testing kits won’t last through the weekend.
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 too. Supplies including protective gear, respirators and hand sanitizer were dwindling.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday ordered spending $42 million in emergency funding to allow the state to lease two hospitals — Seton Medical
Center in Daly City and St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles — for three months to provide care for patients with COVID-19. Up to 120 patients can be treated at Seton starting as soon as Wednesday, while St. Vincent will reopen to provide care for up to 366 patients as soon as possible, the governor’s office said.
The emergency fund will also be used to buy or refurbish ventilators, provide more patient transportation service and expand testing capacity at a state lab.
California is one of the hardest-hit states, with 1,224 confirmed cases and 23 deaths as of Saturday.
New Hampshire’s largest hospital, Dartmouth-hitchcock 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.
Johns Hopkins reports there have been about 13,000 deaths globally. The United States has seen more than 280 deaths so far. Italy, which has Europe’s largest outbreak, now has at least 4,825 dead.
For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority recover.
But the virus is spreading at a rapid rate, jolting the global economy and starting to max out the health care system in several cities.
Spain now has the thirdhighest number of infections worldwide, followed by the U.S. Spanish health authorities have acknowledged that some intensive care units in the hardest-hit areas are close to their limit. 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 Mediano, who treated victims of a 2004 jihadist bomb attack in Madrid that killed nearly 200 people and wounded many times more, said nothing prepared her for the national health tragedy that Spain is now enduring.
“This cannot be withstood much longer,” Mediano said from the central city of Guadalajara.
In Germany’s southern state of Bavaria, town squares were empty. Pigeons outnumbered people in London’s usually bustling Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square a day after the British government ordered the closure of all bars, restaurants, movie theaters and other places where people congregate.
But shoppers still flocked to street markets in both countries, in a sign that restrictions were being interpreted in a patchwork fashion.
Africa’s cases of the coronavirus rose above 1,000 while two heads of state appeared to defy their own travel restrictions to attend another president’s inauguration. Nigeria on Saturday announced it is closing airports to all incoming international flights for one month in the continent’s most populous country.
In the Middle East, air raid sirens echoed across Jordan’s capital Saturday to mark the start of a three-day curfew, aimed at containing the coronavirus, which has claimed another 123 lives in Iran, home to the region’s worst outbreak.
The latest deaths bring Iran’s overall toll to 1,556 amid 20,610 confirmed cases, according to figures released by the Health Ministry.