The Jacob Javits convention center on the west side of Manhattan on Monday was turned into an emergency facility with 2,500 beds, at about the same time the USNS Comfort laid anchor, also on the west side of midtown Manhattan, with 1,000 beds, while the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, where the US Open tournaments are held, was turned into a 350-bed hospital – all in an attempt to pick up surplus patients who can no longer be handled by the packed city hospitals.
According to the de Blasio administration, as of Tuesday, there were 41,771 coronavirus patients in the city, of whom 8,549 found a hospital bed. 1,096 died.
“All the hospitals combined had about 20,000 staffed hospital beds,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday, adding that the city urgently needed to triple that number. “We’re just going to keep going every single day adding and adding and adding to get to the point where we have what we need,” the mayor said.
“This coming Sunday, April 5, is a demarcation line,” the mayor said. “This is the point at which we must be prepared for next week when we expect a huge increase in the number of cases.”
As of Tuesday, in New York State, the daily number of new deaths has increased by an average of 31% a day, and the number of deaths has tripled in four days. Statewide, the number of confirmed coronavirus patients has increased by 9,298, to 75,795. The number of coronavirus hospitalizations is close to 11,000, up 15% from Monday, with 2,710 new patients in ICU with ventilators.
In New Jersey, Gov. Philip Murphy on Tuesday announced 2,196 new cases, which brought the state’s total to 18,696, with 69 new fatalities, 267 since the outbreak of the disease.
Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut on Tuesday announced 557 new coronavirus patients in his state, bringing the total to 3,128, with 33 new fatalities, a total of 69 dead so far.
Federal public health officials projected on Tuesday that, should all the health measures operate optimally, and everyone in the US continue to stay home and avoid contact with others, the coronavirus is expected to kill between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans.
With that in mind, President Donald Trump told the nation, “I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks.”
More like a very tough two months, if not much, much longer than that.
As of Wednesday morning, there are 188,592 cases of the coronavirus across the United States, but health experts have suggested that the real number of infections is much higher, since a number of states have not been testing their residents, and some that do only test healthcare workers. Currently the death rate in the US is 12 in 1 million. With 4,055 dead, the US has surpassed China’s reported 3,312 dead.
There have been 859,800 cases of the coronavirus around the world as of Wednesday morning, with 42,340 dead and 178,335 recovered.
In Israel, 233 more coronavirus patients were recorded overnight Wednesday, raising the total to 5,591, with 21 dead.