New York is on the brink of being overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
Cuomo, a Democrat, warned during a Tuesday morning news conference that the “apex” of the coronavirus outbreak in his state could be two to three weeks away.
“The apex is higher than we thought, and the apex is sooner than we thought,” he said at the Javits Center in New York City.
The number of coronavirus cases in New York has risen above 25,000, three-fifths of which are in New York City. Cuomo said 210 people had died across the state.
Cuomo also said his state urgently needed 30,000 ventilators and up to 100,000 more hospital beds, noting it could be “the difference between life and death.”
“We had projected the apex at about 110,000 hospital beds, and that’s the number I’ve been talking about,” Cuomo said. “The new projection suggests that the number of … hospital beds needed could be as high as 140,000 hospital beds. So, flatten the curve, flatten the curve, we haven’t flattened the curve, and the curve is actually increasing.”
“Those are troubling and astronomical numbers, and as I mentioned, are higher numbers than had been previously projected,” Cuomo added.
Cuomo noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to send 400 ventilators to New York but stressed that the state needs far more. He urged the Trump administration to use the powers of the Defense Production Act to get production moving.
“Four hundred ventilators? I need 30,000 ventilators,” he said. “You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators? What are we going to do with 400 ventilators when we need 30,000 ventilators?”
On Friday, Cuomo placed “New York state on pause,” demanding the closure of all nonessential businesses and a mandate for all citizens to stay indoors to slow the spread of the disease.
On March 18, the Trump administration ordered the Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort to deploy to New York to help free up overloaded hospitals in New York state.
As of Tuesday, there are more than 400,000 cases of the coronavirus worldwide, with more than 100,000 recovered.
