Governor to take ventilators for New York City as hospitals buckle

NEW YORK » With coronavirus deaths surging in New York, the governor announced Friday he will use his authority to seize ventilators and protective gear from private hospitals and companies that aren’t using them — one of the most aggressive steps yet in the U.S. to relieve severe shortages of equipment needed to fight the scourge.

“If they want to sue me for borrowing their excess ventilators to save lives, let them sue me,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. He characterized it as a “sharing of resources,” not a seizure, and promised to eventually return the equipment or compensate the owners.

The executive order that he said he would sign is aimed at the kind of shortages around the nation and the world that authorities say have caused frontline health care workers to fall sick and forced doctors in Europe to make life-or-death decisions about which patients get a breathing machine.

Cuomo has said New York, the worst hot spot in the nation, could run out of ventilators next week, while Louisiana’s governor said New Orleans could exhaust its supply by Tuesday.

The number of the people infected in the U.S. exceeded a quarter-million and the death toll climbed past 6,600, with New York state alone accounting for more than 2,900 dead, an increase of over 560 in just one day. Most of the dead are in New York City, where hospitals are getting swamped with patients. About 15,000 people were hospitalized statewide, most of them in the city.

Philippe Montravers, an anesthesiologist in Paris. “We’ve had doctors, nurses, caregivers who got sick, infected ... but who have come back after recovering. It’s a bit like those World War I soldiers who were injured and came back to fight.”

Spain recorded over 900 new deaths, down slightly from the record it hit a day earlier. The carnage almost certainly included large numbers of elderly who authorities admit are not getting access to the country’s limited breathing machines, which are being used first on healthier, younger patients.

In a vast exhibition center in Madrid that was hastily converted into a 1,300-bed field hospital, bed No. 01.30 held patient Esteban Pinaredo, age 87.

“I’m good, I love you,” Pinaredo told his family via Skype. “I will run away as soon as I can.”

The facility’s organizer, Antonio Zapatero, said Spain’s nationwide lockdown must be maintained.

“Otherwise, this is what you are facing,” he said, pointing at the rows of beds.

With glorious spring weather likely to tempt stir-crazy families out of lockdown this weekend in Europe, the message across the continent remained, “Stay home.” Paris police set up roadblocks outside the city to stop those trying to escape for Easter vacation.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with health problems, it can cause pneumonia. Over 200,000 people have recovered, by Johns Hopkins’ count.