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Friday, March 29, 2024

New York in crisis as death toll nears 9/11 level

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New York in crisis as death toll nears 9/11 level
New York in crisis as death toll nears 9/11 level

With dangerously low levels of medical supplies left, New York state braced for an onslaught of new COVID-19 cases next week after recording more than 500 deaths in a single day, bringing the total to nearly 3,000 - or about the same number killed in the U.S. in the Sept.

11, 2001, attacks.

Lisa Bernhard has more.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) NEW YORK GOVERNOR, ANDREW CUOMO, SAYING: “New York is in crisis.” New York on Friday suffered its single deadliest day from the coronavirus, recording more than 500 deaths, and bringing the statewide total to nearly 3,000 – about the same number killed in the U.S. in the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo pleaded for resources nationwide to be deployed to the state, where ventilators, hospital beds and other medical supplies are mere days away from running out with the worst of the onslaught yet to come.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) NEW YORK GOVERNOR, ANDREW CUOMO, SAYING: “People are going to die in the near term because they walk into a hospital and there's no bed with a ventilator, because there's either no bed or no staff or no PPE or no ventilator.

That is what is going to happen." New York City alone has suffered more than a quarter of U.S. deaths in the outbreak.

Cuomo said he will sign an executive order to take ventilators from institutions that don’t need them and either give them back at a later date or reimburse the institutions.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) NEW YORK GOVERNOR, ANDREW CUOMO, SAYING: “I'm not going to be in a position where people are dying and we have several hundred ventilators in our own state somewhere else." Meanwhile, healthcare workers protested outside of New York City’s Mount Sinai hospital – desperate to get the message out about the city’s dire needs.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) REGISTERED NURSE SASHA WINSLOW, SAYING: “As of this morning, they say we got six days left until we run out of ventilators.

Six days of people that, if we don't get what we need, will die.

And that is something that will be on their conscience, not mine.

Because I'm here, and I'll keep coming back here, because that is what I do.” But the lack of available healthcare workers – with many of them now too ill with the coronavirus to come in – has delivered another crushing blow.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) REGISTERED NURSE SASHA WINSLOW, SAYING: “You have 3 nurses to 35 patients.

3 nurses, all COVID positive, with, with caring for 35 patients.

Just 3 nurses, let that sink in.” New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio is asking for an additional 1,000 nurses, 150 doctors and 300 respiratory therapists for the city.

The mayor told CNN he thinks there are enough ventilators to get through Sunday – after that, he’s not sure.

New York City has yet to receive a resupply for the up to 3,000 ventilators needed by next week, de Blasio said, urging President Trump to mobilize medical personnel from the U.S. military.

Governor Cuomo was asked whether he was ‘seizing’ ventilators with his executive order – a term he objected to – shortly before being asked what his late father, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, taught him about leadership in a crisis.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) NEW YORK GOVERNOR, ANDREW CUOMO, SAYING: “He taught me to trust in love, and we need love now.

We need love as a people.

Am I seizing ventilators?

No, I’m taking excess equipment to save lives.

It’s about doing the right thing and it’s about love....”

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