Cuomo: ‘Please come help us in New York now’
Governor begs for help amid ‘staggering’ COVID-19 death toll
NEW YORK >> New York’s governor issued an urgent appeal for medical volunteers Monday amid a “staggering” number of deaths from the coronavirus, as he and health officials warned that the crisis unfolding in
New York City is just a preview of what other communities across the U.S. could soon face.
“Please come help us in
New York now,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said as the state’s death toll climbed by more than 250 in a single day to a total of more than 1,200 victims, most of them in the city. He said an additional 1 million health care workers are needed to tackle the crisis.
“We’ve lost over 1,000 New Yorkers,” Cuomo said. “To me, we’re beyond staggering already. We’ve reached staggering.”
In California, officials put out a similar call for help as coronavirus hospitalizations have doubled over the last four days and the number of patients in intensive care has tripled.
“If you’re a nursing school student, a medi
cal school student, we need you,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said. “If you’ve just retired in the last few years, we need you.”
Even before Cuomo’s appeal, close to 80,000 former nurses, doctors and other professionals in New York were stepping up to volunteer, and a Navy hospital ship, also sent to the city after 9/11, had arrived with 1,000 beds to relieve pressure on overwhelmed hospitals.
President Donald Trump told governors on a conference call Monday that he “hasn’t heard about testing in weeks,” suggesting that a chronic lack of kits to test people for the coronavirus is no longer a problem. But governors painted a different picture on the ground.
Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, a Democrat, explained that officials in his state were attempting to do “contact tracing” — tracking down people who have come into contact with those who have tested positive — but they were struggling because “we don’t have adequate tests,” according to an audio recording of the conversation obtained by The New York Times.
“Literally we are one day away, if we don’t get test kits from the CDC, that we wouldn’t be able to do testing in Montana,” said Bullock, alluding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Trump initially said that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, could respond to the question, but then quickly offered a rejoinder. “I haven’t heard about testing in weeks,” the president said. “We’ve tested more now than any nation in the world. We’ve got these great tests and we’re coming out with a faster one this week.” Reiterating his point, Trump added: “I haven’t heard about testing being a problem.”
The president has recently taken to pointing to the volume of tests that have been administered — a misleading figure since, according to health experts, the more relevant figure is how many people are being tested per capita.
In that regard, the United States still lags well behind other nations like South Korea.
A White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, described the call this way: “The governors praised President Trump’s leadership, assistance and quick
“Anyone who says this situation is a New York Cityonly situation is in a state of denial. You see this virus move across the state. You see this virus move across the nation. There is no American who is immune to this virus.”
— New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo
action to address this national crisis, and the president told the governors he would make sure that whatever they may need, he would direct his team to provide.”
With cases growing nationwide, Trump said the U.S. government is sending an additional 1,000 ventilators over the next two days to Michigan, New Jersey, Illinois, Louisiana and Connecticut.
“Challenging times are ahead for the next 30 days, and this is a very vital 30 days,” Trump told reporters. “The more we dedicate ourselves today, the more quickly we will emerge on the other side of the crisis.”
In Europe, meanwhile, hard-hit Italy and Spain saw their death tolls climb by more than 800 each, but the World Health Organization’s emergency chief said cases there were “potentially stabilizing.” At the same time, he warned against letting up on tough containment measures.
“We have to now push the virus down, and that will not happen by itself,” Dr. Michael Ryan said.
Three-quarters of a million people worldwide have become infected and more than 37,000 have died, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. reported nearly 160,000 infections and over 2,900 deaths, with New York City the nation’s worst hot spot, but with New Orleans, Detroit and other cities also seeing alarming clusters.
“Anyone who says this situation is a New York Cityonly situation is in a state of denial,” Cuomo said. “You see this virus move across the state. You see this virus move across the nation. There is no American who is immune to this virus.”
Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease expert, similarly warned that smaller cities are likely about to see cases “take off” the way they have in New York City.
“What we’ve learned from painful experience with this outbreak is that it goes along almost on a straight line, then a little acceleration, acceleration, then it goes way up,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
In other developments around the world:
Bells tolled in Madrid’s deserted central square and flags were lowered in a day of mourning as Spain raced to build field hospitals to treat an onslaught of patients. The death toll topped 7,300.
In Japan, officials announced a new date for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — summer of 2021 — as a spike in reported infections fueled suspicions that the government had been understating the extent of the country’s outbreak in recent weeks while it was still hoping to salvage the Summer Games.
Moscow locked down its 12 million people as Russia braced for sweeping nationwide restrictions.
Israel said 70-year-old Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is quarantining himself after an aide tested positive for the virus. And in Britain, Prince Charles, the heir to the throne who tested positive for the virus, ended his period of isolation and is in good health, his office said.
Italy’s death toll climbed to nearly 11,600. But in a bit of positive news, newly released numbers showed a continued slowdown in the rate of new confirmed cases and a record number of people recovered.
“We are saving lives by staying at home, by maintaining social distance, by traveling less and by closing schools,” said Dr. Luca Richeldi, a lung specialist.
At least six of Spain’s 17 regions were at their limit of intensive care unit beds, and three more were close to it, authorities said. Crews of workers were frantically building more field hospitals.
Nearly 15% of all those infected in Spain, almost 13,000 people, are health care workers, hurting hospitals’ efforts to help the tsunami of people gasping for breath.
The crisis in China, where the outbreak began in late December, continued to ease. China on Monday reported 31 new COVID-19 cases, among them just one domestic infection, and the city at the center of the disaster, Wuhan, began reopening for business as authorities lifted more of the controls that locked down tens of millions of people for two months.