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Coronavirus Cases Rise Rapidly, but Cuomo Sees Progress: Live Updates Coronavirus Cases Rise Rapidly, but Cuomo Sees Progress: Live Updates
(32 minutes later)
Though the number of confirmed coronavirus cases continues to grow quickly and has now topped 30,000, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday said that there were early signs that stringent restrictions on social gatherings and other measures could be slowing the virus’s spread.Though the number of confirmed coronavirus cases continues to grow quickly and has now topped 30,000, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday said that there were early signs that stringent restrictions on social gatherings and other measures could be slowing the virus’s spread.
Mr. Cuomo highlighted data that showed slowing hospitalization rates. On Sunday, the state’s projections showed hospitalizations doubling every two days, while Tuesday’s estimates showed them doubling every 4.7 days.Mr. Cuomo highlighted data that showed slowing hospitalization rates. On Sunday, the state’s projections showed hospitalizations doubling every two days, while Tuesday’s estimates showed them doubling every 4.7 days.
“That is almost too good to be true,” the governor said, “but the theory is, given the density that we’re dealing with, it spreads very quickly, but if you reduce the density, you can reduce the spread very quickly.”“That is almost too good to be true,” the governor said, “but the theory is, given the density that we’re dealing with, it spreads very quickly, but if you reduce the density, you can reduce the spread very quickly.”
Other highlights from the morning: Other highlights from Wednesday:
Mr. Cuomo said the $2 trillion stimulus deal struck in Washington would be “terrible” for New York. The state, he said, would only be able to use $3.8 billion from the package to bridge a far-larger virus-related budget gap. But Senator Chuck Schumer’s office noted that New York would receive $40 billion in unemployment insurance, hospital grants and urgently-needed funds for the M.T.A.Mr. Cuomo said the $2 trillion stimulus deal struck in Washington would be “terrible” for New York. The state, he said, would only be able to use $3.8 billion from the package to bridge a far-larger virus-related budget gap. But Senator Chuck Schumer’s office noted that New York would receive $40 billion in unemployment insurance, hospital grants and urgently-needed funds for the M.T.A.
New York State has 30,811 confirmed cases, up more than 5,000 since Tuesday morning. That is more than 7 percent of the 431,000 cases worldwide tallied by The New York Times. There have been 285 deaths in the state. New York City has 17,856 confirmed cases.New York State has 30,811 confirmed cases, up more than 5,000 since Tuesday morning. That is more than 7 percent of the 431,000 cases worldwide tallied by The New York Times. There have been 285 deaths in the state. New York City has 17,856 confirmed cases.
There was encouraging news from Westchester County, where the rate of infection has slowed. “We have dramatically slowed what was an exponential rate of increase,” Mr. Cuomo said. “That was the hottest cluster in the United States of America. We closed the schools, we closed gatherings, we brought in testing, and we have dramatically slowed the increase.”There was encouraging news from Westchester County, where the rate of infection has slowed. “We have dramatically slowed what was an exponential rate of increase,” Mr. Cuomo said. “That was the hottest cluster in the United States of America. We closed the schools, we closed gatherings, we brought in testing, and we have dramatically slowed the increase.”
State officials project they will need 30,000 ventilators, of which they currently have 4,000. But the state is making headway: Mr. Cuomo said 7,000 more ventilators have been procured, in addition to 4,000 ventilators sent by the federal government.State officials project they will need 30,000 ventilators, of which they currently have 4,000. But the state is making headway: Mr. Cuomo said 7,000 more ventilators have been procured, in addition to 4,000 ventilators sent by the federal government.
The governor said about 40,000 health care professionals, including retirees, have volunteered to work when hospitals become strained. Almost half are nurses.The governor said about 40,000 health care professionals, including retirees, have volunteered to work when hospitals become strained. Almost half are nurses.
More than 3,800 people are currently hospitalized, or 12 percent of all confirmed cases. Of those, 888 people are currently in intensive care.More than 3,800 people are currently hospitalized, or 12 percent of all confirmed cases. Of those, 888 people are currently in intensive care.
In New Jersey, Gov. Philip D. Murphy announced 736 new cases, bringing the total in the state to 4,402, including 62 deaths.In New Jersey, Gov. Philip D. Murphy announced 736 new cases, bringing the total in the state to 4,402, including 62 deaths.
Mr. Cuomo’s comments came the morning after federal officials, alarmed over the infection rate in New York City, urged anyone leaving the city to quarantine themselves for 14 days before mingling with the general population elsewhere.Mr. Cuomo’s comments came the morning after federal officials, alarmed over the infection rate in New York City, urged anyone leaving the city to quarantine themselves for 14 days before mingling with the general population elsewhere.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that New Yorkers who were “understandably” trying to leave for places like Florida needed to make sure they were not “seeding” the rest of the United States.Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that New Yorkers who were “understandably” trying to leave for places like Florida needed to make sure they were not “seeding” the rest of the United States.
“When they go to another place, for their own safety, they have to be careful,” Dr. Fauci said.“When they go to another place, for their own safety, they have to be careful,” Dr. Fauci said.
The New York Fire Department’s chief of Emergency Medical Services issued new guidance on Tuesday requiring that any patient who needs to be transported to a hospital must be taken to the nearest one that processes 911 calls, without exception. A man who had been living in New York City’s shelter died after being hospitalized with the coronavirus for several days, officials said on Wednesday.
Patients were previously allowed to request which hospital they be taken to, so long as the one they chose was not more than 10 minutes further away than the closest medical center. It was the first virus-related death of a homeless person in the vast system of 450 traditional shelters, hotels and private apartment buildings that the city uses to house homeless families and single adults. As of Wednesday, there were 39 confirmed coronavirus cases among 27 shelters, according to the city’s Department of Social Services.
The guidance was issued in an internal Fire Department memo obtained by The New York Times. The agency did not identify the man or provide additional details about him, but said he had been living in a shelter for single adults.
The new rule underscores how severely the coronavirus outbreak is straining an emergency services corps that was already stretched thin. According to city data, the division typically receives around 4,000 calls on a steady day. On Tuesday, two sources said, more than 6,400 came in. “Tragically, one New Yorker experiencing homelessness succumbed to this virus after several days in the hospital,” Isaac McGinn, a spokesman for the social services agency, said in an emailed statement. “Our hearts go out to this individual’s friends and family.”
According to the new guidance, patients who knowingly refuse to be taken to the nearest hospital will be left and listed by medics as “refused medical assistance.” The city has around 100 shelters specifically for single adults. In the current environment, such shelters pose a particular challenge for the homeless services department because most of them have dormitory-style sleeping quarters and shared bathrooms.
As twilight approached on Sunday, Jatin Prajapati set up a folding table on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, outside a shuttered eyebrow-threading salon. People living in shelters have complained that social distancing is nearly impossible, and they have questioned whether the buildings were being cleaned frequently enough.
Mr. Prajapati, who works at a pharmacy in Manhattan, spent the day handing out bags containing masks, gloves and hand sanitizer to passers-by. The items were free, which often surprised the people who took them. The virus has spread quickly in the shelter system. At the beginning of last week, a woman in her 50s living in a shelter for single women was the only confirmed positive case. The woman has fully recovered and was out of quarantine, Mr. McGinn said.
Another man, Manuel Cuzco, prayed outside St. Sebastian Roman Catholic Church, also on Roosevelt Avenue. Down the street, restaurants served their last customers for the evening and shopkeepers locked up, unsure of when they would reopen. In several hours on Tuesday, Dr. Ashley Bray performed chest compressions at Elmhurst Hospital Center on a woman in her 80s, a man in his 60s and a 38-year-old who reminded the doctor of her fiancé. All had tested positive for the coronavirus and had gone into cardiac arrest. All eventually died.
Roosevelt Avenue, which runs under the elevated 7 train, is usually a bustling business corridor. But the 8 p.m. deadline — the time when officials ordered nonessential businesses to close indefinitely — was fast approaching. Elmhurst, a 545-bed public hospital in Queens, has begun transferring patients not suffering from coronavirus to other facilities as it moves toward becoming a facility dedicated entirely to the outbreak. Doctors and nurses have struggled to make do with a few dozen ventilators. Calls over a loudspeaker of “Team 700,” the code for when a patient is on the verge of death, come several times a shift. Some have died inside the emergency room while waiting for a bed.
People carrying shopping bags scurried across the street on their way home, and the commercial strip went dark, dotted with the glow of essentials: pharmacies, markets, restaurants serving takeout and liquor stores. A refrigerated truck has been stationed outside to hold the bodies of the dead. Over the past 24 hours, New York City’s public hospital system said in a statement, 13 people at Elmhurst had died.
“It’s apocalyptic,” said Dr. Bray, a general medicine resident at the hospital.
Across the city, which has become the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, hospitals are beginning to confront the kind of harrowing surge in cases that has overwhelmed health care systems in China, Italy and other countries. On Wednesday morning, New York City reported 16,788 confirmed cases and 199 deaths.
While life in New York City and the surrounding area has come to a screeching halt, the construction industry, one of the region’s main economic engines and biggest employers, is humming along as if nothing has changed.While life in New York City and the surrounding area has come to a screeching halt, the construction industry, one of the region’s main economic engines and biggest employers, is humming along as if nothing has changed.
Laborers work side by side, cramming 20-people deep into service elevators and sharing the same portable restroom.Laborers work side by side, cramming 20-people deep into service elevators and sharing the same portable restroom.
While Mr. Cuomo has told New Yorkers to stay indoors in a furious effort to stem the spread of the coronavirus, construction workers have been deemed essential employees, meaning they have to continue working even as most of the work force stays home.While Mr. Cuomo has told New Yorkers to stay indoors in a furious effort to stem the spread of the coronavirus, construction workers have been deemed essential employees, meaning they have to continue working even as most of the work force stays home.
Across the country, governors and mayors have urged roughly half of the United States — at least 179 million people — to stay home. The only people who should go outside, they say, are emergency responders and those considered essential, a wide-ranging term with different meanings in each state.Across the country, governors and mayors have urged roughly half of the United States — at least 179 million people — to stay home. The only people who should go outside, they say, are emergency responders and those considered essential, a wide-ranging term with different meanings in each state.
In New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and most of the country, construction workers have fallen into the essential category. In New York City, which had nearly 158,000 construction jobs in 2018, laborers are hauling hard hats and tools on nearly empty subways and trains every morning on the way to job sites.In New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and most of the country, construction workers have fallen into the essential category. In New York City, which had nearly 158,000 construction jobs in 2018, laborers are hauling hard hats and tools on nearly empty subways and trains every morning on the way to job sites.
“I’m essential to the pocketbooks of rich contractors and essential for spreading the virus, but that’s about it,” said Kirk Gibbs, 57, an electrician at a new parking garage in Syracuse, N.Y. “It’s not essential for us to be here right now.”“I’m essential to the pocketbooks of rich contractors and essential for spreading the virus, but that’s about it,” said Kirk Gibbs, 57, an electrician at a new parking garage in Syracuse, N.Y. “It’s not essential for us to be here right now.”
People with second homes in the Catskills region of New York are being warned to stay away in venom-laced Facebook posts and blunt messages from county officials. With most of the big hotels in New York City either closed or making plans to close, some are offering to house doctors, nurses and other workers on the front lines of the fight against the coronavirus.
Boardwalks and beaches in some Jersey Shore towns are barricaded, and local residents are urging that coastal access bridges be closed to outsiders. On Wednesday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Twitter that the high-end Four Seasons hotel on East 57th Street, which closed temporarily last week with hopes of reopening in late April, would provide free accommodations to “medical personnel currently working to respond” to the pandemic.
In the Hamptons, the famous playground for the rich on Long Island’s East End, residents are angry that an onslaught of visitors has emptied out their grocery stores. The Four Seasons, which is owned by the Beanie Babies founder Ty Warner, was “the first of many hotels we hope will make their rooms available,” Mr. Cuomo said.
A backlash has grown on the outskirts of the New York region, as wealthy people flee to summer homes to avoid the densely packed city, which has become the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in the United States. There is an abundance of rooms that could be made available. A list circulating among hotel industry officials shows that hotels that have closed their doors or plan to contain more than 30,000 rooms.
“They’re coming up here to get away because they’re worried,” said Kim Langdon, 48, of Ashland, N.Y., in Greene County. “They pumping gas. They’re stopping at grocery stores. If they’re infected and they don’t know it, they’re putting everyone at risk.” The list contains some of the city’s biggest and best-known, including the Grand Hyatt, the New Yorker, the Ritz Carlton, the Pierre, the Plaza and the St. Regis. Most have given notice to the main union of hotel workers in the city, the Hotel Trades Council, that they plan to reopen from mid-April to late June.
Faced with a shortage of doctors, New York University’s medical school announced that it will allow students to graduate early if they agree to join the fight against the coronavirus epidemic. The 74th annual Tony Awards, Broadway’s biggest night, has been postponed. A new date has not yet been decided.
Only those set to graduate this year and who have met most of their requirements are allowed to take the offer. The event had been scheduled to take place on June 7.
The students would have to begin working as interns in the university’s internal and emergency medicine departments in April, about three months earlier than they would normally begin working. The theater industry announced this month that Broadway houses would go dark through April 12. With the coronavirus pandemic showing no sign of slowing down, that date is now expected to be pushed back to May or June.
A spokeswoman for the university confirmed that students would be allowed to graduate early pending approval from the New York State Department of Education. Tony Award Productions, the company that puts on the awards show, said on Wednesday that a new date for the Tonys would be announced once Broadway reopened its doors.
At hospitals in New York and the region, a sense of desperation is setting in as waves of sick patients threaten to overwhelm the health care system.
Hospitals are looking to augment their work force in any way they can. Mr. Cuomo said Wednesday that more than 40,000 people had already volunteered to provide health care.
Medical students at other New York institutions expect to be called up as well.
David Edelman, a medical student at Columbia, said that classes and rotations were canceled in early March, but students expected to be called in soon to help with routine matters.
“We need some kind of stable of support for when things are going to get worse,” he said.
More than 100 college students who grew up in foster care and are allowed to stay in campus dormitories year-round have been told to move out immediately, as New York State prepares to turn dorms into hospitals.
Several students said they feared that they would end up homeless or would have to return to less supportive foster homes and residential treatment centers.
The sudden move affects 117 students from a special scholarship program who live at Queens College and City College of New York in Harlem and at another residence operated by John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Marcus Diego, a student at Queens College, said the lack of planning and the disregard for the welfare of teenagers and young adults who have lived unstable lives was unacceptable.
“The National Guard is here,” he said. “They are turning these rooms into hospital rooms already. We’re packing. We are going to be homeless.”
The scholarship program, the Dormitory Project, which offers year-round housing and academic and financial support, is sponsored by the City Administration for Children’s Services, CUNY and New York Foundling, one of New York’s largest nonprofit child welfare agencies.
Bill Baccaglini, the chief executive of New York Foundling, said the nonprofit learned that the students had to be moved on Monday, though there was some concern previously that dormitories could close to follow the trend of other schools around the country.
The nonprofit and the Administration for Children’s Services have been working with foster care agencies to find places for the students to stay.
As The New York Times follows the spread of the coronavirus across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, we need your help. We want to talk to doctors, nurses, lab technicians, respiratory therapists, emergency services workers, nursing home managers — anyone who can share what they are seeing in the region’s hospitals and other health care centers.As The New York Times follows the spread of the coronavirus across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, we need your help. We want to talk to doctors, nurses, lab technicians, respiratory therapists, emergency services workers, nursing home managers — anyone who can share what they are seeing in the region’s hospitals and other health care centers.
Even if you haven’t seen anything yet, we want to connect now so we can stay in touch in the future.Even if you haven’t seen anything yet, we want to connect now so we can stay in touch in the future.
A reporter or editor may contact you. Your information will not be published without your consent.A reporter or editor may contact you. Your information will not be published without your consent.
Reporting was contributed by Jonah Engel Bromwich, Michael Gold, Nicole Hong, Winnie Hu, Andy Newman, Nate Schweber, Michael Schwirtz, Ashley Southall, Nikita Stewart, Tracey Tully and Ali Watkins. Reporting was contributed by Jonah Engel Bromwich, Michael Gold, Nicole Hong, Winnie Hu, Patrick McGeehan, Andy Newman, Nate Schweber, Michael Schwirtz, Ashley Southall, Nikita Stewart, Tracey Tully and Ali Watkins.