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Cuomo also announced that the state has been busy and successful in securing emergency supplies for hospital workers, including 339,760 N-95 masks; 861,700 surgical masks; 353,500 gloves; 145,122 gowns and 197,085 face shields. (See second image above.)
Globally, there have been 360,096 confirmed cases of coronavirus, which resulted in 15,485 deaths. In New York, there were more than 5,700 new positive cases of coronavirus confirmed overnight, bringing the state’s total to 20,875, Cuomo announced on Monday, March 23.
“We have the most competent team of government professionals that could be assembled working on behalf of the state of New York,” Cuomo said. “They see this virus as an upward trajectory, as a wave that will break at one point and the question is when it happens, and what it will do to our healthcare system.”
To help combat the spread of the virus, Cuomo said that he is ordering all hospitals to increase their capacity by at least 50 percent, though he is hopeful they will be able to do more.
Cuomo said that currently, New York has approximately 53,000 potential hospital beds for patients, though it may need 110,000. There are also only 3,000 ICU beds, and the governor said that the state may require more than 10 times that.
New York’s 20,875 cases - which resulted in 157 deaths - are more than ten times more New Jersey (1,914 cases); California (1,849); Washington (1,844) and Illinois (1,049). Of the 20,875 cases in New York, 2,645 (13 percent) were hospitalized, with 621 patients in the ICU.
“I’m issuing an emergency order to hospitals that says, ‘you must increase your capacity by 50 percent,’” he said. “We need to find more beds and use more rooms. We know it might be unreasonable to ask hospitals to double their capacity, but we don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask them to try and increase by 100 percent capacity.”
Over the weekend, Craig Smith, the chief of surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, said that hospitals could be over capacity within three or four weeks.
"The hard data has become alarming. I wish I could use a more comforting word," he said. "In the past few days, it has also become obvious that the virus has breached our Department walls, and we can expect to hear about increasing numbers of infected Department colleagues. It should be no surprise if these infections appear in clusters associated with the care of infected patients.”
Cuomo said: “We need to increase hospital capacity as quickly as we can so that at the apex of the wave you have the hospital capacity to take care of the vulnerable people we’ve been talking about.
“We’re not going to be able to control the spread of the virus, but you can reduce the rate of the spread so that you can handle it in your hospital system.”
In addition to four temporary hospitals being set up at the Javits Center in Manhattan (1,000 beds), SUNY Old Westbury (250 beds), SUNY Stony Brook (250 beds) and the Westchester County Center (250 beds), the US Naval Ship Comfort will arrive in New York early in April. It has a 1,000-bed capacity.
The governor said that the state is now doing upwards of 16,000 tests for coronavirus daily, which has led to the spike in confirmed positive cases. New York is also set to begin testing an experimental drug to combat COVID-19.
“The FDA gave the New York State Department of Health approval to use tests under a compassionate care basis to use a drug we think has a real capability (to fight the virus),” he said. “On Tuesday, we’ll begin FDA-approved hydroxychloroquine and Zithromax. The trial is for people in serious condition, and the NYSDOH has been working on this with the top healthcare agencies and think it shows promise. We’re starting that this week.”
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