A military hospital ship
arrived in New York on Monday as America’s coronavirus epicentre gears up for
the peak of the pandemic, with emergency restrictions extended as the national
death toll passed 3,000.
 |
| The USNS Comfort passes the Statue of Liberty as it enters New York Harbor during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York City, on March 30, 2020 |
The navy's 1,000-bed USNS
Comfort docked at a Manhattan pier as more American states enforced
stay-at-home orders after President Donald Trump abandoned
his Easter target for life returning to normal in the United States.
The 894 foot-long
vessel, which also has space for a dozen operating rooms, was greeted
by cheering crowds after departing Norfolk, Virginia on Saturday.
Its arrival came as Virginia,
Maryland and the capital Washington, DC, became the latest areas to restrict
citizens' movements, meaning almost three-quarters of Americans are now living,
or about to live, under various phases of lockdown.
On Sunday, Trump cancelled his
plans to re-open much of the United States by Easter – April 12 – and extended
social distancing guidelines until the end of April after his top scientists
confronted him with data on the rising coronavirus deaths.
He said America's death rate
was likely to increase for two weeks, describing as “horrible” a prediction by
senior scientist Anthony Fauci that COVID-19 could claim up to 200,000 lives.
Worst-affected New York is
ramping up hospital capacity and taking delivery of desperately needed medical
supplies as it races against time.
“We have been playing catch up from day one,”
Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters.
“Don't fight today's fight.
Plan for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks from now when you're going to have
the apex, and make sure that we're in a position to win the battle,” he added.
The Comfort will care for New
Yorkers requiring intensive care unrelated to the coronavirus, easing the
burden on a hospital network overwhelmed by an influx of COVID-19 patients.
The US now has the highest
number of confirmed cases in the world – more than 163,000 according to a
running tally by Johns Hopkins University.
The virus has claimed more
than 3,000 lives in the country, including more than 1,200 in New York State.
Some 790 deaths have occurred
in New York City, the country's financial capital and the most populous US
city.
It is spreading to other
areas, notably New Jersey, Louisiana, Illinois and Florida, where Governor Ron
DeSantis said Monday he did not want passengers from the cruise ship Zaandam
suspected of having the virus “dumped” in his state.
New York opened a temporary
emergency hospital in the Javits convention centre with 2,900 beds on Monday. A
field hospital in Central Park is due to open Tuesday.
Four other sites have also
been approved to house patients discharged from hospitals to make way for
residents suffering from the novel coronavirus.
Flights run by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) began arriving at New York's JFK Airport as
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city needed 400 more ventilators by the end of
the week, describing next Sunday as “D-Day.”
The flights, part of 50
planned under “Project Airbridge,” are delivering millions of masks, gowns and
thermometers for hospitals.
“We are all trying to reuse
what we can because you never know when it's going to run out,”38-year-old
doctor Peter Liang told AFP, referring to supplies at the Manhattan hospital he
works in.
Ford Motor Co said on Monday
it would produce 50,000 ventilators over the next 100 days at a plant in
Michigan in cooperation with General Electric's healthcare unit, and can
then build 30,000 per month as needed to treat patients afflicted with the
coronavirus.
Ford said the simplified
ventilator design, which is licensed by GE Healthcare from
Florida-based Airon Corp and has been cleared by the Food and Drug
Administration, can meet the needs of most COVID-19 patients and relies on air
pressure without the need for electricity.
Fauci, who leads research into
infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said Sunday that
between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans could die from “millions of cases.”
Trump told Fox News on Monday
he expected a spike in cases around Easter, before numbers begin to fall.
“That would be a day of
celebration. And we just want to do it right,” said Trump, who earlier said he
expected the country to "be well on our way to recovery” by June 1.
Fauci said he had no trouble
convincing Trump to extend the confinement guidelines.
“It was a pretty clear
picture,” Fauci told CNN on Monday.
Trump, who initially
downplayed COVID-19 pandemic, has oscillated between stressing the seriousness
of the outbreak to talking of the need to get people back to work quickly.
A staggering 3.3 million
Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the third week of March, by
far the highest ever recorded.
No comments:
Post a Comment