Gov. Andrew Cuomo is talking to White House coronavirus expert Dr. Anthony Fauci day and night as the pandemic sweeps New York and overwhelms healthcare staff as critical medical supplies dwindle.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been “so kind and helpful to me,” Cuomo said in a briefing Thursday, crediting the member of President Trump’s coronavirus task force for his “brilliant” guidance during New York City’s coronavirus outbreak.
The governor added, “I call him late at night. I call him in the middle of the night … he’s been really a friend to me personally and the state of New York.”
In the city, which counted more than 30,000 confirmed cases on Wednesday, morgues are almost at capacity from virus deaths. One doctor described as “apocalyptic” the surge of virus patients at her Queens hospital.
A native New Yorker, Fauci, 79, is working all hours to manage the crisis, with days stretching to 20 hours and interviews squeezed into already packed days.
“He believes we should be doing more, not less,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, an ally of Trump, said of Fauci this week.
The nationwide death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 1,000 as of Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University.
