Growing Concern for Virus Hot Spots Near New York: Live Updates
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Growing Concern for Virus Hot Spots Near New York: Live Updates
17-22 minutes
Governor Cuomo compared a jump in cases on Long Island to “a fire spreading” and said that New Jersey had “a serious problem” as the coronavirus spread.
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The Chinese government is facilitating a donation of 1,000 ventilators to New York State, Governor Cuomo said.
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Credit...Jonah Markowitz for The New York Times
‘A fire spreading’: Hot spots are emerging near New York City.
Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey started a news conference on Saturday with a moment of silence for the lives lost, more than 800 people, in the state’s coronavirus outbreak.
Hours earlier, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York compared a jump in cases on Long Island to “a fire spreading.” And added that “New Jersey has a serious problem.”
Though New York City remains the nation’s epicenter for the coronavirus outbreak with thousands of new cases every day, officials are increasingly concerned about emerging hot spots near the city.
Citing coastal communities increasingly crowded by those fleeing other hot spots, Mr. Murphy announced that New Jersey would move to make it easier for municipalities or counties to block “rentals to transient guests or seasonal tenants” for the duration of the crisis, including at hotels and motels.
On Long Island, a rapid increase in cases brought New York City’s share of the statewide cases down to 65 percent, from 75 percent. It raised questions about the continuing migration of New York City residents to second homes like beach communities or areas of the Hudson Valley — though Mr. Cuomo said he did not know if that kind of movement was contributing to the increase in cases on Long Island.
The challenge of stopping transmission from hot spots is widespread: Rhode Island’s governor tried to enforce a 14-day quarantine for New Yorkers by having law enforcement officers go door to door searching for anyone from the state and pull over those with New York license plates. Florida’s governor mandated a similar quarantine for anyone flying in from New York.
Mr. Murphy announced that there had been 200 more deaths in the state since Friday, bringing New Jersey’s total to 846 — which he noted was more than the number of New Jersey residents who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Here are some other updates from Mr. Cuomo’s and Mr. Murphy’s briefings:
Deaths in New York State: 3,565, up from 2,935 on Friday morning.
Confirmed cases in New York State: 113,704, up from 102,863. In New York City, 63,306, up from 57,169.
Hospitalized in New York State: 15,905, up from 14,810.
Deaths in New Jersey: 846, up from 646 on Friday.
Confirmed cases in New Jersey: 34,125, up from 29,895.
Hospitalized in New Jersey: More than 4,000, up from just over 3,000.
Governor Cuomo said that the crisis would peak in New York in the coming days.
With the coronavirus having claimed more than 3,560 lives in New York, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo warned Saturday the state was still days away from the peak of its outbreak.
“Nobody can tell you the number at the top of the mountain,” Mr. Cuomo said, but estimated that it would be “in the seven-day range.” He said the state was not yet prepared for that point.
“It feels like an entire lifetime,” he said. “I think we all feel the same, these stresses, this country, this state — like nothing I’ve experienced in my lifetime.”
During his daily briefing in Albany, Governor Cuomo offered signs that many New Yorkers are overcoming the virus: Two-thirds of the people who had been hospitalized after reporting coronavirus-related symptoms have been discharged, Governor Cuomo said.
“We are all in the battle here and the battle is stopping the spread of the virus,” he said.
The number of hospitalizations was increasing at a slower rate, as well: The number of patients currently hospitalized in New York increased by only 7 percent since Friday, the smallest increase in at least two weeks. From March 22 to 28, for instance, the number of people hospitalized was rising by an average of 27 percent per day.
Here are some other updates from Mr. Cuomo’s briefing:
- The federal government will be focusing its resources on the conversion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center into a coronavirus treatment facility, providing staffing and equipment.
- Mr. Cuomo said New York was currently counting on 85,000 health care volunteers — about 22,000 of them coming from out of state — to assist with the growing number of patients, he said. He also signed an executive order Saturday to allow medical students who have not yet graduated to practice medicine in an effort to provide reinforcements. “We need doctors, we need nurses,” he said. “So we are going to expedite that.”
China is sending 1,000 ventilators to New York State.
The Chinese government is facilitating a donation of 1,000 ventilators to New York as the state rushes to increase its supply, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Saturday.
Mr. Cuomo called the donation “really good news” and said the ventilators would arrive at Kennedy Airport on Saturday.
“This is a big deal, and it’s going to make a significant difference for us,” the governor said at his daily press briefing in Albany.
Oregon also said that it would send 140 ventilators to New York State, drawing thanks from Mr. Cuomo during his briefing.
The ventilator donations were the latest examples of the lengths that governors in the United States are going to in order to acquire much-needed medical equipment and supplies. Noting that “we’re not really China experts here,” Mr. Cuomo said the state had reached out for help in navigating its dealings with the country, including from the Asia Society.
“It all goes back to China,” Mr. Cuomo said, “which, long term, we have to figure out why we wound up in this situation where we don’t have the manufacturing capacity in this country.”
Mr. Cuomo thanked China’s consul general in New York, Huang Ping, and a slide shown at the briefing said, in part, “Thank you to the Chinese government.”
Mr. Cuomo also thanked Joe Tsai, a co-founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and the owner of the Brooklyn Nets; his wife, Clara Wu Tsai; and the Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma.
De Blasio compares coronavirus crisis to “many Katrinas.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio repeated his calls on Saturday for a national enlistment system to help move doctors and health care workers across the country to areas with high need, saying New York City was heading into “the toughest time” in the weeks ahead.
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““This is going to be like having many Katrinas. This is going to be a reality where you’re going to have many cities simultaneously, many states simultaneously in crisis needing health care professionals, needing ventilators,” Mr. de Blasio said on MSNBC’s “AM Joy,” adding that the thinning ranks of health care workers was the biggest problem in New York’s coronavirus response.
The mayor has said that the city would need 45,000 more medical personnel to fight the pandemic through April and May.
City-run hospitals in New York desperately need specialized critical-care nurses in particular, said Dr. Sheldon H. Teperman, director of the trauma center at NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi in the Bronx.
Those nurses have special training to work in intensive care units, aiding severely ill patients on ventilators and operating pumps that deliver multiple intravenous medicines needed to keep them stable.
The epidemic has thinned their ranks, with nurses themselves falling ill or needed to care for sick family members. “If we could get critical-care nurses, if volunteers would just come, we could save more lives,” Dr. Teperman said.
On Friday evening, the New York City sent a wireless emergency alert — usually used for extreme weather or Amber Alerts — asking medical personnel to volunteer to fight the virus.
“Attention all healthcare workers: New York City is seeking licensed healthcare workers to support healthcare facilities in need,” the message said.
New York City cancels spring break, angering thousands of teachers.
New York City education administrators made official on Friday the news more than 75,000 of the city’s teachers were dreading amid the pandemic: Spring break is officially canceled.
The news from Department of Education officials angered many teachers who were pleading for a short break during the Passover and Good Friday holidays.
Representatives of the city’s powerful teachers union expressed their disappointment.
“With this step, Mayor de Blasio shows that he does not recognize just how hard you have been working during these stressful and anxiety-filled times,” United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew wrote in a scathing email to his members after officials made the announcement.
The schools chancellor, Richard A. Carranza, promised a reprieve of four leave days at an undetermined time in the future.
“We recognize this may feel like a disappointment to many students and schools as we have all been working tirelessly in our transition to remote learning and very reasonably want a break,” Mr. Carranza wrote in an email to teachers.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had warned last month that spring break could be called off for schools statewide as the state grappled with an increasing number of school closures to stop the spread of the virus.
New York City’s vast system of 1,800 public schools that serves 1.1 million students — the largest in the country by far — continues to face its most serious challenge in decades with a remote learning operation that could potentially last through the end of the school year.
The city’s vulnerable student population, including 114,000 homeless children, many of whom rely on the meals offered at schools, have been especially affected.
Coronavirus is straining the post office.
A stagehand who worked in Manhattan said his and his wife’s unemployment benefits were “languishing” on debit cards sent to their post office box in Manhattan, despite repeated requests to forward their mail to Suffolk County, where they are staying.
A college professor on the Upper West Side trying to mail iPads to students said he found his nearest post office was “Closed. Locked up. No sign on the door.”
And an assemblyman from the Bronx said mail service was so bad in his neighborhood that he asked for his paycheck to be sent to his son’s home in a neighboring ZIP code.
The coronavirus outbreak has heightened New Yorkers’ reliance on deliveries as they stay home to prevent the spread of the virus. It has also put a deep strain on the United States Postal Service, whose letter carriers are considered essential workers.
To make matters worse, at least 230 postal employees tested positive for the virus, according to Dave Partenheimer, a public relations manager for the Postal Service.
Bronx lawmakers said they were inundated with complaints from people who had not been getting their medications and paychecks during the crisis.
“They have to redeploy people,” while assuring their safety, Assemblyman Jeffery Dinowitz of the Bronx said. “They have to deal with this.”
A spokesman for the union did not respond to detailed messages about service disruptions in the city.
The hospital ship Comfort might start accepting coronavirus patients.
The two Navy hospital ships deployed to aid cities hit hard by the pandemic, the Comfort and the Mercy, could end up accepting patients who test positive for the coronavirus, Defense Department officials said Friday — a turnaround from the previous policy that sought to keep the ships virus-free.
General Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday that the Defense Department was reassessing whether to allow coronavirus patients aboard the ships. They had originally been intended to treat patients who did not have the virus in order to free up space in onshore hospitals.
“The secretary of defense is making a risk assessment to determine whether or not we should take on” patients who have tested positive, General Milley told Fox News.