Mayor: NYC needs federal help to curb virus' mounting toll

NEW YORK (AP) — Here are the latest coronavirus developments in New York:

MAYOR SEEKS FEDERAL ASSISTANCE

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio renewed his call for help from the federal government Friday as COVID-19 cases strained the city's hospital system.

“When the president says the state of New York doesn’t need 30,000 ventilators, with all due respect to him, he’s not looking at the facts of this astronomical growth of this crisis,” de Blasio said on ABC's “Good Morning America.”

De Blasio spoke in response to comments President Donald Trump made Thursday when he told Fox's Sean Hannity, “I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”

Asked how many of the ventilators that can keep critically ill coronavirus patients alive the city has on hand, de Blasio said the city has received about 2,500 in the last week or so.

“The state needs 30,000, the city needs 15,000,” he said. “So we’ve gotten something. I’m thankful for that," the Democratic mayor said. “But it has to keep coming."

“This is going to get worse before it gets better,” de Blasio added.

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PUBLIC SERVANTS FELLED BY VIRUS

The coronavirus outbreak is taking its toll on New York City's civil servants.

Two people who helped keep New York moving during the crisis, bus operator Oliver Cyrus, 61, and train conductor Peter Petrassi, 49, were killed by the virus Thursday, according to their union.

Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Tony Utano called the two deaths in one day “a terrible and incredibly sad loss.”

He called transit workers “true heroes” for continuing to work during the pandemic and he...