Governor Cuomo used his daily press conference today to call on the Trump administration to act without delay, saying “we're not slowing the virus down. It's accelerating on its own.”
Speaking at the Javits Center, where an emergency hospital is being constructed by FEMA, Cuomo said the infection rate of COVID-19 is climbing faster than anticipated, and it is now projected that the peak of the virus will be within 14 to 21 days. The apex, first projected to require about 110,000 hospital beds, is now expected to required 140,000 beds. It is projected that 40,000 ICU beds will be needed at the virus' peak.
“We have 25,665 new cases,” he said. “3234 of those are hospitalized. And based on current projections, we are short 30,000 ventilators, which will be the difference between life and death for the patients who are most seriously ill.”
Cuomo pointed out that the federal government currently has 20,000 ventilators stockpiled.
“We need federal help! There is no other way.”
The Trump administration has sent 400 ventilators, saying that private businesses are capable of manufacturing additional machines.
“The timeline doesn't work! You're missing the magnitude of the problem,” the governor said.
Cuomo said that without a federal contract promising to pay for those machines, they won't be made soon enough. He predicted that if machines arrived today, it could take two weeks to get them into service.
“The president calls it a war. Then act like it's a war! If you don't send those ventilators to New York, you pick the 26,000 people who will die because you only sent 400 ventilators.”
It was a shift in tone for New York's governor, one that reflected what he said is the urgency of the situation.
“Hear what I'm saying here?” he asked reporters. “You'll hear the governors of California, Washington, Illinois, all saying this in a few weeks. What happens here will end up happening elsewhere. It's just a matter of time. New York is first. Get us what we need and I will personally transport those ventilators to wherever they need to be next. We'll share medical personnel. We'll help each other. That's what we should be doing!”
Cuomo said New York City has promised him a plan to increase social distancing, which has been a challenge in the city's parks and recreational areas. He continued to ask that hospitals make a plan to go above the 50% increase in capacity to doubling their capacity. He said he's also talking to hotel owners about converting their rooms into hospital beds.
He said a variety of drugs are being tried and tested, and the state is also developing a blood test to detect antibodies to COVID-19.
“That's part of planning to restart the economy while protecting public health. If we can determine who is immune, those people can start going to work. We can get the economy going again. But today, the hospitals are the crisis at hand.”
